Thanks to everyone who made recommendations! I sent off a note to Mr. Kindle
about the historic sources and some contact information. I include the
letter below. As Mr. Kindle doesn't have email access, I also included some
contact information for both the Society for the Preservation of Old Mills
(SPOOM) and the Texas Historical Commission.
Reply follows.
Cheers to all,
Tim
-----------------------------
Dear Mr. Kindle,
Iıve found a few bibliographical sources for information about your
dry-stone masonry damn:
James Leffel, Construction of Mill Dams and Bookwalters Millwright &
Mechanic (1881).
Apparently Leffelıs work provides the best contemporary compendium of dam
construction including a rip-rap dam. The reprint of this volume was
published in 1972 by Noyes Press, then in Park Ridge, NJ. The book is
available from the society for the preservation of old mills, and their
information is included in this letter.
Oliver Evans, The Young Millwright and Miller's Guide. The copy Richard
Kimmel had was dated 1850 and was a 13th edition. The original was printed
around 1780s.
Philip L. Lord, Jr., Mills on the Tsatsawassa (1983) is also very
informative but may not cover details of dam construction.
The United States Department of Agriculture produced a guide for building
small pond dams on farms in the 1930s or 1940s. Nobody had a reference at
this time, but a trip to the government documents area of your nearby
reference library should help to uncover it.
If you are interested in hiring a traditional mason, my colleague
Christopher Espenshade wrote that ³a good friend of mine (John Frost) in the
Pittsburgh area is a traditional British mason, fully trained in all types
of brick and rock masonry. John is presently rebuilding furnaces at a steel
mill, but also does historically correct restorations/renovations. Your
Texas man should be warned that historically accurate masonry is somewhat
expensive and time-consuming. In addition, the federal and state
governments may have several levels of red tape/review depending on how
large the impoundment will be. A licensed structural engineer may need to
sign off on the design and construction. John and I would be willing to
offer a bid to work with the Texas man, to identify and construct a
historical style dam. Please provide him my e-mail address and home phone
(Chris is in Pennsylvania, at 412-380-2535).²
ACRA offers many internet links, including the Society for the Preservation
of Old Mills.
http://www.acra-crm.org/histpreslinks.html
You will find lots of information on the internet about all these societies.
Don Durfee also placed a short announcement requesting information on your
behalf in the Society for Industrial Archaeology newsletter. Newsletters
are slower, but sometimes reach someone not on email. If someone contacts
me during the next few months, I will pass the information to you when it
arrives.
Good luck with your project. Iıve asked Don to include some information
about our society (the SIA). Consider becoming a member, as your interests
include many common areas with other members of the society (particularly
mills and masonry!)
Best regards,
Tim Scarlett
*******************************************************************
Timothy James Scarlett
Incipient Assistant Professor of Archaeology
Program in Industrial History and Archaeology
Department of Social Sciences
Michigan Technological University
1400 Townsend Drive
Houghton, Michigan 49931-1295 USA
Tel (906) 487-2113 Fax (906) 487-2468 Internet [log in to unmask]
MTU Website: www.industrialarchaeology.net
SHA Website: www.sha.org SIA Website: www.sia-web.org
*******************************************************************
"There can be no peace now, we realize, but a common peace in all the world;
no prosperity but a general prosperity. There can be no common peace and
prosperity without common historical ideas... A sense of history as the
common adventure of all mankind is as necessary for peace within as it is
for peace between the nations."
-- H. G. Wells, 1923
Introduction to the third edition of The Outline of History, MacMillan
Company, New York, p. vi.
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