This quirky, historic shopping district is just a block off of Route 6, but is well worth the visit. In its early days, Milford was home to a number of mills; the Upper Mill is still functioning today and a self-guided tour is available for free.
In addition to the working water-powered mill, the Upper Mill/Old Lumberyard district includes a number of buildings and more than two dozen businesses with over 40,000 square feet of antiques, boutiques, specialty shops, cafes and a bar.
Plenty of free parking is available onsite and most shops offer a free map detailing a walking tour of the district. From Harford Street (Route 6), turn to the south on either Sixth or Seventh Streets and the Upper Mill/Old Lumberyard district will be found within the first 1⁄4 mile.
Thomas Quick, Sr., the earliest known European settler in the area, built a saw and grist mill on the Vandermark Creek in 1740, which may have been the first of what ultimately became nine working water-powered mills in Milford. Six of them, including the Jervis Gordon grist mill, were on the Sawkill Creek. They ground flour and feed, sawed and planed wood, turned wagon spokes, tanned skins for leather, pressed apples for cider and shaved poplar wood into excelsior, a packing and stuffing material used before the days of oil-based plastic forms.
The Jervis Gordon Grist Mill, the one now known as the Upper Mill, was first built in stages between 1804 and 1837. After a fire destroyed it in 1881, it was rebuilt the following year, with improvements, by Jervis Gordon. By this time, the Upper Mill was annually producing great quantities of animal feed, corn meal, buckwheat flour (a specialty of the area), wheat flour and rye flour. This mill was in operation for the entire year, unlike some mills that ran only part of the year either for lack of water or because of ice. The average workday was 12 hours and skilled workers were paid about $2 per day.
Subsequent to Gordon’s tenure, there have been several owners of the mill; modern technology and natural disaster put an end to the milling at the Upper Mill in the late 1950s. In 1984, the Water Wheel Group bought the mill and restored the parts of the milling system for educational activities. The mill is on the National Historic Register.
Today, the Upper Mill, with its functioning waterwheel, is open to visitors with a self-guided tour. Water rushes over the three story high waterwheel, driving a series of shafts, gears, pulleys and belts that power the stones and grain milling equipment, all visible through the glass wall of the WaterWheel Café. The tour enables visitors to understand the whole fascinating process – grinding of grain by the power of falling water.