September 2009 -- A scale replica of the 19th century woolen mill standing at Great Works in South Berwick will be on display from through October 10 at the Counting House Museum. The model, made by Bryan Madison of Connecticut, will travel here in time for a family reunion of descendants of mill owner John H. Burleigh.
SOUTH BERWICK, Maine -- Madison will bring the model from his home in Farmington, CT, and while he is in town will get to actually see the building after which it was made. He discovered the mill through the Old Berwick Historical Society website.
The Counting House Museum, owned by the historical society, is a repository for documents, photographs and historic curiosities covering a spectrum of community life in and around the Berwicks. It is open weekends from 1 to 4 pm through October and year round by appointment. Admission is free.
Built over 150 years ago, the mill at Great Works is now a landmark seen from the Brattle Street bridge at the falls of the Great Works River, a water power source since the early 1600s. A location of both sawmills and grist mills over the years, the Great Works site was greatly expanded for the production of woolen textiles in 1854 by John Burleigh. The owner, who left South Berwick as a teenager to work on a ship as a cabin boy, returned 17 years later as a wealthy sea captain. He bought the factory and named it the Newichawanick Woolen Company after an Indian name for South Berwick.
Descendants believe the factory supplied the Union Army with blankets during the Civil War, shipping them by the railroad that ran along what is now Route 236. Burleigh became a United States Congressman for Maine’s First District in 1872 and died in 1879.
The Burleigh family operated the mill into the 20th century, employing hundreds of South Berwick residents. The factory continued to manufacture army blankets through World War II, and then continued as Rocky Gorge Woolen Mill until 1949. Electricity is still generated here by the Rocky Gorge Corporation. The nearby public school comprising South Berwick and Eliot's fourth and fifth grade is now called Marshwood Great Works School.
Photo caption: Bryan Madison of Farmington, CT, created his model of the Great Works woolen mill in South Berwick after becoming acquainted with the mill on the Old Berwick Historical Society web site. His model will be on display at the Counting House Museum in South Berwick from September 20 through October 10.
HEAR YE! HEAR YE! 
