Why not write about The Baltic Mill? asked a friend who often passed the building when he rode his bike on the rail trail in Enfield.
I had just written a brief history for Daybreak of a building on Route 120 in Lebanon and was looking for another structure to investigate. I had seen the mill, but only from the road, when I turned onto Baltic Street from Route 4. It was gray and weathered and apparently abandoned. I figured it would valiantly face the elements until it gave up and went to ground.
Photo by Sarah Copps
So I took my friend’s suggestion and planned a brief history peppered with compelling anecdotes from town natives. Then I set about contacting a few people to ask what they remembered about the mill, found a book and then a pamphlet and looked things up on the web. I took notes, made copies, reached out to more people, unearthed, listened, and took more notes. Nearly everyone I mentioned the mill to had a relative who had worked there, or had worked there themselves, or had a fact or story to relate. There was so much, in fact, that I decided no one could do the mill’s history credit without a book contract under their belt—especially someone like me, who moved to Enfield seven years ago because it was bucolic and close to both Lebanon and the high school where I worked at the time.
So instead, I decided to offer just a snapshot of the Baltic Mill and perhaps the town that gave it a home. But what I ultimately learned was … well, keep reading!
Enfield was once emphatically a mill town and the Baltic Mill produced not just textiles, but a way of life. It had a succession of owners and was known by different names over the years. It was originally built in 1886 by Benjamin Greenbank, a Vermonter whom Enfield selectmen induced to build his new mill in their town rather than rebuild in Vermont. When they broke ground, school was let out for half a day.
The mill in 1908
Families often had many members who worked at the mill; a job as a teenager was described to me by Liz Houghton, a Canaan native whose grandfather had worked there, as “a rite of passage.” Lifelong Enfield resident Steve Patten remembers cleaning oil from under the looms on a Sunday as “the filthiest job ever”—yet sounded decidedly nostalgic. His grandfather worked there for decades. Newly arrived Irish and Finnish immigrants also labored at the mill, which ran three shifts, six days a week.
The mill shut down three times over the course of its life: during the Depression, then in 1956, and conclusively in 1971. At the height of its operation, it employed nearly 400 people from Enfield and surrounding towns.
Benjamin Greenbank built housing in town for families who worked there. After him, ownership passed to George Whitney, who added a generator that lit street lights, businesses, and some homes. The mill was closed by a large manufacturer—Textron—in 1956 and then reopened at the end of that same year under the ownership of the A.G. Dewey Company, headquartered in Quechee.
As I learned about the mill and what it meant and still means to people, I talked to a neighbor who lamented that Enfield was no longer a vacation destination as it was when she was a girl. Vacation destination?
The mill just above the dam as seen from the rail trail, by Janice Fischel
Well into the 20th century, Enfield had a solid reputation as the ideal place to visit when the weather turned warm. It was full of inns, motels, and guest houses and crammed with city folks eager to boat, fish, and swim in the lakes. The Livingstone Lodge, which boasted nearly 2,300 feet of lakefront property, operated for over 50 years until 1983. The Boston & Maine rail line could bring as many as 800 visitors to Enfield over a single weekend. According to the son of the original owners, cited by the town Heritage Commission, “visitors came from all quarters of the globe, from many varied professions and academia, among them many famous and important people.” Downtown Enfield was vibrant and packed with commercial enterprises. And then there were the summer camps for boys and girls.
One other thing: It turns out that the mill isn’t abandoned at all. Looks can deceive. It’s still in use, not as a bustling textile mill, but as the home of at least one business concern and a residence. It may be quiet now and not look as spiffy as it once did, but perhaps it doesn’t need to look good. It just needs to be remembered and appreciated. And, believe me, it is.
Sarah Copps lives in Enfield with her husband, cat, and dog. Her writing includes newspaper reporting, freelance writing, and literary fiction.
