In 1863 Dwight Ellis rented a small Mill off Crane Hill Road, near the brook in North Wilbraham, this mill burned down 1 1/2 years later. This small mill was most likely the mill erected by Jonathan Kilborn who in 1803 placed in service a carding machine, brought from Mendon, Massachusetts.
The first mill in this area was a gristmill, very near the site of the small mill that Mr. Kilborn built. In 1762 the town gave Caleb Stebbins of the Outward Commons (Wilbraham) and Joseph Miller of the Stony Hill Parish (Ludlow), a deed of four acres of the Ministry lot on Eleven Mile Brook to build this mill. Today Eleven Mile Brook is known as Twelve Mile Brook.
In 1864-1865 Dwight Ellis bought the water privileges and erected a new mill on the very site of the old gristmill, which he ran in partnership with his brother Stillman Ellis. As recorded in the local newspaper on February 12, 1866, “the new woolen mill has just been finished and its operation will commence by the first of April.” The main building is three stories high and 32’ by 80’. An attached office and dye house give the building a total length of 132 feet. Both water and steam power were utilized with about forty employees to start.
The mill manufactured fine cashmere. Its entire cost was $15,000, exclusive of the machinery.
July 4, 1866, there was a fire at a warehouse owned by the New York and New Haven Steam Boat Company in which D. W. Ellis had his first woolen products stored, made from the new mill in North Wilbraham. All this was destroyed by the fire at a cost of $3,300.
October 3rd and 4th, 1869, there was a great rainstorm that saturated the region. The most serious flood damage in Wilbraham occurred along Twelve Mile Brook. At approximately 1:00 pm on October 5th, the dam at Calkins Saw Mill, the upper of the three, gave way. This rush of water reached the dam of the Gates Mill which is located about a mile downstream.
This dam also failed and the rushing waters were racing towards the dam of D. W. Ellis, 1,600’ downstream. The dam was no match for all this water and it was swept away in no time. A 30’ by 60’ storehouse, nearly filled with wool, dye house, and a large quantity of oil was washed away downstream. Mr. Ellis estimated a loss of $10,000. A quarter mile below the Ellis mill is a substantial stone culvert, 15’ wide by 15’ high which the railroad passed over. The debris of the storehouse, dams, and structures upstream, together with sacks of wool, quickly choked their above-mentioned culvert. The rising waters soon began eating their way into the embankment behind the stonewalls of the culvert. The entire embankment gave way creating a 200’ long by 70’ deep cavern. All this material including the above-mentioned continued downstream taking out the highway and bridge and washing it all into the Chicopee River. The mill and the dam were soon rebuilt.
The factory thrived and a boarding house was built for the workers. They remained partners until 1888 when Dwight sold his interests to his brother Stillman. Dwight Ellis, had also established a textile mill in Monson in 1871, and his son Arthur took control of it after his father died in 1899.
In 1885 the Wilbraham Woolen Mill employed 31 workers. Ellis’s mill was followed in 1872 by the erection of a large paper mill on the Chicopee River by the Collins Paper Company.
On May 13, 1893, at approximately 6:30 in the morning, the Wilbraham Woolen Mill burnt to the ground. The loss of the mill and stock was $60,000, with insurance about $35,000. The fire started in one of the carding rooms soon after the start of the machinery. It is believed to have been started by a spark from the machinery.
The wooden building was saturated with oil and consequently burned very quickly. The volunteer fire department had only the use of one fire hose connected to a force pump in the mill. The fire soon spread to all three stories of the mill and the employees hurried to get out. The mill was 40’ by 80’ with an L 30’ by 50’ and about forty employees. At this point, the Wilbraham Woolen Mill was owned by L. B. Baker of Springfield, F. B. Baker of Stafford Springs, and T.H. Mack of Wilbraham. They took ownership of the mill a few years before the fire when Stillman Ellis died.
Investigation of the property today where the woolen mill once stood reveals no remains except an occasional foundation stone scatted about. The area is very low-lying and just below the lower dam embankment on the north side of Twelve Mile Brook. This area today is heavily covered with underbrush and very difficult to navigate. A few massive oak trees are in the area and most likely stood near the mill as young trees. A good explanation why virtually no remains of this woolen mill are present is because of a few natural disasters including the Flood of 1955. The mill itself would have been long gone before these natural disasters but the foundation and some structural remains would have been very prevalent. You would have to remember that not only was one dam washed out because of the flood, there were two dams. This other dam, much smaller, was located upstream on Twelve Mile Brook, east of Crane Hill Road. Supposedly this dam broke first and the rushing waters combined with the already swollen brook were no match for the more well-known dam downstream. This stone dam is very much intact but the earthen embankment to the north was washed away during the 1955 flood.
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