Stony Brook Grist Mill and Museum
There is perhaps no sight so welcome during a Cape Cod spring as that of the herring making their way up rivers to spawn in freshwater ponds. Watching the fish flip-flopping their way against the tide is nothing if not an analogy for the gumption needed to overcome life’s trials. Most herring runs are deep in the woods, and if you don’t know where they are, you won’t find them. But Stony Brook, one of the Cape’s most productive runs, is right off a main road and set up for visitors. Beginning around 1660, this site has over the years bustled with industry—a mill for grinding corn, a fulling mill, a woolen mill, a tannery, a cotton weaving mill, a carding mill, a paper mill—and nowadays inside the grist mill, a volunteer miller grinds corn into cornmeal that can be bought for $2. Upstairs in the mill, there are artifacts of Cape Cod in the 1800s, including an antique loom.
There is perhaps no sight so welcome during a Cape Cod spring as that of the herring making their way up rivers to spawn in freshwater ponds. Watching the fish flip-flopping their way against the tide is nothing if not an analogy for the gumption needed to overcome life’s trials. Most herring runs are deep in the woods, and if you don’t know where they are, you won’t find them. But Stony Brook, one of the Cape’s most productive runs, is right off a main road and set up for visitors. Beginning around 1660, this site has over the years bustled with industry—a mill for grinding corn, a fulling mill, a woolen mill, a tannery, a cotton weaving mill, a carding mill, a paper mill—and nowadays inside the grist mill, a volunteer miller grinds corn into cornmeal that can be bought for $2. Upstairs in the mill, there are artifacts of Cape Cod in the 1800s, including an antique loom.
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