Humble Beginnings
Lexington Land Grant
The first Germans the northeast corner of Ashburnham settled high above the current farm location at the base of Blood Hill on The Old Northfield Road.
Lexington Land Grant
Christian William Whiteman, one of seven German immigrants who purchased the Lexington Grant, settled the Whiteman Farm property here in Ashburnham in 1758. Whitman's land encompassed this area to the northeast of the original center of Ashburnham. The original farmhouse was built here providing three large rooms and a birthing room downstairs and a ladder accessible loft on the second floor. The black lines on the picture here show the original size. There would not have been a central chimney.
The Nickolas Whiteman Mill
The "old" mill shown here around 1907, was built sometime before 1780 by Nicholas Whiteman, Christion's son. It was later rebuilt by Jacob Whiteman, Nicholas Whiteman's son after the earlier mill burned in 1820. The first mill would have been water wheel driven and this second version was water turbine powered.
Changing Residents
After taking ownership of the farm sometime after 1835, George W. Cushing of Ashburnham sold the Farm in 1839 to Pitt Moore of Sterling, MA. Pitt's daughter Abigale married Luke Marble and in 1858 Pitt sold interest in the Farm to Luke to be handed down to his sons and their five generations decendents. Luke, being a talented tradesman, took an interest in the old Whiteman mill on the property and in 1863, built the second mill on a seventeen-acre flooded meadow dubbed Marble pond.
Roughcut Lumber and More
The mill utilized the pond's water to drive a sizable water turbine below the mill in the stream. An angle gear and six foot flywheel drove a belt up through the floor to the saw block and four foot sawblade which was fixed to the floor. Logs were delivered from the woods by paths that led to the pond and floated to the mill. Logs delivered by cart were either slid into the pond and guided to the mill or piled in the field adjacent to the pond and fed through the intake side.
Roughcut Lumber and More
In times of little rain, work would halt until the pond refilled. Unwilling to lose precious weather and money, Luke refit the old Whiteman mill with the same propulsion system as the new mill and added finishing equipment like a planer, lathe, finish saw and other fine crafting equipment. Here his employees labored making parts for pails, tubs and chairs for the local chair manufacturers. All of his sons, Joel, Alden and Warren worked on the farm and in the mills but Warren was the one who carried the business forward.