Last Saturday, I took a stroll and a stumble, a ramble and a rumble, through the Millington Gorge between the railroad trestle and the bridge at the end of South Maple Avenue. There once was a path that led from the road down to the river, but the steps have not been maintained, and the path was as much a hazard as a help. The sides of the gorge are rather steep, but there are some flats down at the bottom, and it is possible to walk most of the way between the landmarks pretty close to the banks of the river.
The Historical Society heard a presentation about two weeks before about the state of agriculture in the Great Swamp (just upstream of the gorge) in the 1870s; the presenter was an amateur historian but was not local, and he was puzzled by references in his materials to a sawmill which existed at that time in the neighborhood of Davison’s Bridge, presently the South Maple Avenue bridge. He had walked a little along the river but had seen no signs that a mill had been there. I wanted to take a look for myself.
This section of the river has gone to nature, and is used by man for nothing aside from a brief fishing season each spring, but there are ample signs of human activity, not inconsistent, in some cases, with a small industry like a sawmill. There is a sloping path consisting of large pieces of rubble, which goes down from the height of the gorge to the river, and here there are these wide flats, and, nearby, a section of rapid water which suggests that once a bridge or dam or other hindrance stood there. Another, similar section of rapid water exists further upstream. Downstream are clearly visible the pilings of an old bridge, probably the remnants of the trestle that preceded the present railway bridge. Irrelevantly, but vividly, halfway down the cliff face, I saw an old gate and sections of picket fence. And many fallen trees; here they rest where they have fallen, until they slip, imperceptibly, into the stately, silent river and are carried off to their oblivion.
The things we build, eventually they outlive their usefulness and they are abandoned; but they don’t go away so fast. They leave their marks on the landscape around them; it embraces their fading traces and integrates them into its flow. The stones forget what they once were, forget even their names, and the waters wash them clean.
