Back around 1970 or so I took a tour of the
still operating Excelsior Mill in Wolfeboro Falls. At the time there were two people still working there. One guy had been there for
70 years if my memory serves. The machinery in the mill was driven by overhead "Line Shafts" and leather belts...which in turn got their power from a water driven turbine in the cellar..which got water from the river running between Lake Wentworth and Back Bay.
When the river didn't provide enough water, there was a horizontal steam engine in the cellar that would be brought into service.
There were perhaps two dozen or more reciprocating guilotine-like machines that would slice long shavings off "cord wood" logs that were stood up vertically in the machine. Up and down..up and down.... the razor sharp knives would take the shavings off the log until there was nothing left of the log. The employees job was to walk up and down the line of machines and replace the spent logs with new ones when required.
I just ran into these pictures of the remains of the mill taken by someone in 2002. I'm very suprised that the steam engine is still there..and that someone hasn't aquired it and restored it. NB
http://www.abandonedbutnotforgotten...._hampshire.htm
Check out the donor of this Rollins engine:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...-_IMG_3199.JPG
The
Rollins Engine Company was located in Nashua, NH