The Mill River

by John Sinton

Photograph shows a fast-flowing, rocky river rushing through a dense, lush green forest. The dark, churning water flows directly toward the viewer, breaking into white foam and ripples as it cascades over numerous smooth, dark gray boulders scattered across the riverbed. The left foreground is dominated by a large, thick cluster of vibrant green bushes with broad leaves and small white flower clusters hanging over the water's edge. Rising just behind these bushes, a slender, mossy tree leans over the river, its branches covered in bright green summer foliage. The right riverbank features patches of tall green grass, a large rounded gray boulder, and a tangled pile of fallen, weathered logs and driftwood tucked under the tree line. In the background, a thick wall of deep green forest trees and dense undercanopy completely encloses the river.

Of the scores of Mill Rivers in New England, few have so richly reflected the Native and American histories as has the Mill River that runs 20 miles through the heart of Williamsburg and Northampton, then into the great Connecticut River in Easthampton, Massachusetts.

A graphic map illustrates the Mill River in Massachusetts, highlighting the path of the river and its tributaries through several towns. Starting in the upper left, the river system begins at Upper and Lower Highland Lakes in Goshen and flows southeast as the West Branch Mill River, merging with the East Branch Mill River near Williamsburg. It continues past Haydenville, Leeds, and Florence, marked by dense teal dotted patterns indicating populated areas, before winding down to Northampton where it connects to Hulbert's Pond in the lower right corner. Dashed gray lines mark the municipal boundaries of surrounding towns like Conway, Whately, Hatfield, Chesterfield, and Westhampton, with a small legend in the bottom left clarifying the teal dotted pattern as "Populated Areas" and the solid light blue fill as the "Mill River Watershed."

Physical Attributes

Tumbling out of its headwaters at Upper Highland Lake in Goshen at 1,440 feet above sea level, the Mill River’s West Branch drops 910 feet to Williamsburg, then down another 200 feet to a waterfall at Leeds (elev. 330 feet) and yet another 100-foot drop to Florence dam where it flattens out. The Mill River then winds its way to the Smith College dam at Paradise Pond, dropping a final 20 feet to the meadows of the Connecticut River at Hulbert’s Pond in Easthampton.

On its way to its confluence with the Connecticut, the Mill River has carved a sinuous valley that left three hills in Nonotuck—Hospital Hill (or Pancake Plain), Fort Hill, and Meetinghouse Hill. 

Settlements

Aboriginal people settled in and around the Mill River at least 10,000 years ago, managing their settlements, meadows, and woodlands to suit their needs. The area around Northampton and Hadley, on the Connecticut River’s left bank, was named Nonotuck, the same name as the group of Indians who had been living there for centuries. They called the river Pawagonnick (place of flat stones for pounding corn into meal) or Cappowongonick (the sheltered place in the river’s bend).

English Settlement

The first English settlers in the 1650s renamed Nonotuck, “Northampton,” and established their primary settlement on Meetinghouse Hill. Within the first 20 years, the colonists had pushed Natives to the margins of Northampton and occupied the whole valley. Northampton’s layout followed the paths of the Mill River and its tributaries, giving almost every household property along a waterway.

A detailed black-and-white historical engraving shows a Mill in Florence, Massachusetts. On the left, a tall, spindly, mostly bare deciduous tree curves gently over a dirt path running along the foreground, its base surrounded by scattered river rocks and a prominent tree stump. To the right of the tree, a stone and timber dam stretches across the flowing Mill River, creating a waterfall. Nestled against the right riverbank stands the two-story oil mill building with multiple small, multi-paned glass windows across its facade and a smaller wooden shed attached to its right side. A dense grove of mature, leafy trees towers immediately behind and to the right of the mill complex, partially obscuring a split-rail wooden fence running along the grassy bank. In the distant background, the river stretches smoothly past rolling, forested hills
Josiah White’s oil mill from a C.C. Burleigh Jr. painting reproduced in Charles Sheffeld’s History of Florence, Massachusetts, 1895.

The colonists found the Mill River fit their needs almost perfectly. Few tributaries to the Connecticut River combined a manageable size and length coupled with steep slopes in the upper reaches and falls and cascades along its middle course plus plentiful water in its lower reaches. Few New England streams, therefore, supported a similar concentration of factory villages—a half dozen of them along a dozen miles of river.

Mill River Mills

English settlers began building mills on the river within the first decade of their arrival, chiefly to grind corn and wheat and to saw timber. The first dam at Paradise Pond, on what is now the Smith College campus, was built in 1666, and was called the Upper Mills. The site became the mill center of Northampton for 150 years. 

Photograph shows a waterfall cascading over a historic stone dam nestled within a lush, green forest. The wide dam spans the center of the image, releasing a broad, textured sheet of water that plummets down into a churning pool of dark brown river water below. On the far left, a steeper, rockier section of the falls churns out heavy white foam and rapids over natural rock formations. In the center foreground, a cluster of wet, reddish-brown flat rocks sits amidst the swirling white foam where the water collects. The scene is framed by a slender, textured tree trunk rising along the right edge, while low-hanging green branches with dense summer leaves drape across the upper portion of the frame. In the background, a thick wall of deep green deciduous and evergreen forest encloses the river basin.
Cook’s dam on the Mill River in Leeds. Photographed by Laurie Sanders.

Mill River industries reflected America’s rapid growth during the Industrial Revolution when early textile mills were built in the early 1800s in the villages of Leeds and Williamsburg. The mid-19th century witnessed the construction of several nationally important factories: the Nonotuck Silk Mill (later named Corticelli) and Prophylactic Brush companies in Florence, the Bay State Cutlery in Bay State Village, and Maynard’s Hoe Shop at Paradise Pond. 

The Williamsburg Flood Disaster of 1874 destroyed most factories upstream of Florence but had little impact on the downstream factories, all of which continued production until the 1930 Great Depression, after which a few continued to operate until the end of the 20th century.

Flood History

Prior to the mid-20th century, when the climate was colder and ice built up several feet thick on the Connecticut River, both the Connecticut and Mill Rivers would flood annually, especially in February and March. During spring freshets, river ice formed dams that backed up water, sending river waters out onto the flood plain. Following Native patterns, the first settlers built their settlements on land high enough to avoid flooding.

Photograph documents the extensive devastation following the 1874 Mill River Flood in Williamsburg, Massachusetts. The foreground and middle ground consist of a wide, barren valley of eroded mud and sand heavily littered with uprooted tree roots, scattered branches, and debris. Near the center of the image, a lone, tall brick factory smokestack stands isolated amidst the ruins where an industrial mill once stood. To its right, a white two-story wooden house with a small rooftop cupola remains upright, situated next to another residential building farther back, both surrounded by the mud plain. A shallow, narrow stream of the Mill River snakes through the center of the washed-out landscape, spanned by the precarious remains of a broken wooden footbridge. In the background, a steep, partially cleared hillside rises on the left, leading to distant rolling hills and a dense tree line
Leeds, Massachusetts after the Mill River Reservoir Disaster of 1874. After the disaster, all that remained of the Mill River Button Company was the smokestack. Photograph: Knowlton Brothers. Historic Northampton (ID no. 55.819).

Eventually, however, Northampton’s inhabitants built houses down toward the meadows and flooding became a huge problem. After 1800, major floods occurred every five years, and several floods earned names, such as the Jefferson Flood of 1802 and the Lincoln Flood of 1862. The Great Flood of 1840 sent one large bridge crashing into the next one downstream and changed the course of the great river. The most destructive and fatal flood, the 1874 Williamsburg disaster, was not a natural flood, but one caused by a dam collapse.

An enormous spring freshet in 1936 forced Northampton to ask the U.S. government to help construct a series of dikes to protect the city and to divert the river out of its downtown. Northampton has not experienced a similar incident since that time. 

Black-and-white photograph captures a large group of children and teenagers swimming and playing around a wide river dam on a summer day. The concrete dam cuts diagonally across the center of the frame, with a steady, white curtain of water cascading down its face into a rocky pool below. Along the very top edge of the dam, a line of about a dozen kids in mid-20th-century swimwear stand and wade in the shallow water, while on the far right, a boy balances on the lip, preparing to jump or dive into the deep water below. In the calm water behind the dam, several more children can be seen swimming and wading. The foreground features a rugged, rocky riverbed below the falls where two young boys sit together on a boulder facing away from the camera, watching two older, shirtless boys stand nearby near the splashing water. On the far lower right, a young boy wearing a plaid shirt sits alone on a flat rock, looking directly at the camera, while a dense, out-of-focus forest line frames the upper background.
Young people at the Nonotuck Dam, c. 1940. Courtesy of Forbes Library.

Why the Mill River Matters

The Mill River matters because it is part of the essence of this place. Generations of children have played and swam in it, searching for treasure from buttons and pottery to river life—crawfish, mussels, minnows, and bugs. It is a deep part of its residents’ lives and memories.

The Mill River carries both Native- and Euro-American stories in its waters. The river bears a deeply American character, mirroring the history of this nation. We must give thanks to the Mill for doing what rivers can do so well—memorialize our past and float us toward the future. 

FURTHER READING

For more information on the Mill River and the conservation areas that surround it, check out these downloadable overviews written by Laurie Sanders:

The Mill River Overview

Button Factory Conservation Area

Vistron Conservation Area

Leeds Memorial Conservation Area

Mill River Near Veteran’s Field

Beaver Brook Conservation Area

Florence Meadows Conservation Area

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Hannay, Agnes, “A Chronicle of Industry on the Mill River,”  Smith College Studies in History 21, nos. 1-4 (1935-1936): 1-142.

Sharpe, Elizabeth. In the Shadow of the Dam: The Aftermath of the Mill River Flood of 1874. NY: The Free Press, 2004. 

Sinton, John. Devil’s Den to Lickingwater: The Mill River Through Landscape and History . Amherst, Mass.: Levellers Press, 2018.

 “The Mill River,” a documentary film by Stan Sherer, 2023 (43 minutes, color and b&w).