The year 2020 has seen the standstill of a countless number of average life activities, from the daily commute to work to attending sporting or music events.
But, this year also marks the renewed motion of at least one thing in New Jersey.
After remaining motionless in the waters of the Raritan River for the past three years, the giant wheel protruding from the side of the iconic Red Mill in Clinton was fully restored by Custom Alloy Corporation in High Bridge on Tuesday.
The installation project was made possible by the museum’s Save the Wheel Campaign, a component of the larger Red Mill Capital Fund effort that aims to restore both the Mulligan Tenant house and the waterwheel of the museum village. The Capital Fund’s fundraising goal of $250,000 was met in November 2019, Paul Muir, executive director of the Red Mill Museum Village, confirmed.
The new wheel is planned to once again spin on Sept. 27, when a ceremony has been tentatively scheduled to celebrate its installation.
Explaining the significance of the wheel’s restoration, Muir described the object as “the most significant single item representative of Hunterdon County in the last 75 years.”
“It’s a symbol of the history of the mill and the industrial power of the mill,” Muir said. “And, on a more modern note, I think it’s a symbol of the community organization that we’ve created as a museum since it was founded in 1963, and that’s where the wheel now has been placed. And it’s really the welcome to Hunterdon County.”
The wheel originally served as a power source for equipment inside the Red Mill, which since the construction of its earliest section around 1810 has specialized in the creation of products ranging from wool to grist and graphite.
“The mill, for all those different types of operations, needed water to power the equipment,” Elizabeth Cole, curator of collections for the museum village, said. “Water power definitely helps build a lot of the towns around the rivers in the area. Unfortunately, not a lot of the mills still remain.”
The mill has not functioned to produce any type of material since being sold to the Clinton Water Supply Company in 1928, but the waterwheel regained its motion after the Red Mill was established as a museum village in 1963.
“Our founders felt like it was a really iconic part of Hunterdon history, to see a waterwheel turning,” Cole explained. “So mainly it just had a nostalgic and iconic kind of feeling. But they really wanted to make this museum a center for community and I think people are drawn to the wheel turning, even though it’s no longer producing products.”
“It’s producing memories,” Muir added.
The newest restoration marks the wheel’s third since the birth of the museum village, and was necessitated by its degradation over the years.
“It became out of balance because it was decaying, and you can’t really control how it decays,” Muir said. “And eventually it did just decay. When we took the old wheel out, there’s a corner of a section that was just disintegrated at that point.”
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The museum village launched the Save the Wheel Campaign in May 2017 to restore and modernize the waterwheel. The campaign quickly drew the support of companies including Tranquilli Financial Advisor in Clinton, Benjamin Moore, and Custom Alloy Corporation — the latter of which also volunteered to construct and install the new wheel.
“This is something we’ve really looked forward to — being so close to home,” Colin Henderson, tooling and design engineer Custom Alloy Corporation, said. “I’m from Califon, I’m a local. So as a young kid I came here and toured the wheel ... so it’s been an honor to work on this project and contribute to my community like this.”
Custom Alloy Corporation was built on the same plot of land where Taylor Iron Works, later reorganized to become Taylor Iron & Steel Company, operated in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Taylor family, once the dominant merchant family in the area, owned the Red Mill in early 1800s, leading Muir to jest that Custom Alloy Corporation was actually obliged to renovate the waterwheel.
“When we started this project, I said, ’Hey, you guys have a responsibility because you owned the property at one point!’ It didn’t quite fly, but they were here to support,” Muir laughed.
“Paul did a really good job of guilt-tripping me into feeling that we had to fix this,” Henderson added.
Henderson described the differences between the new and old wheel, both made of basic carbon steel, as “slight,” noting that the solid epoxy coating of the new wheel in particular should extend its life to roughly 50 years — double the life of the previous wheel.
“The difference is mainly about the (fitting) of the sections, versus how they were fitted previously, and the exact orientation of the buckets and whatnot,” Henderson explained. “In terms of a structural aspect, it was made a little bit stronger but with less materials. So we should have a better performing as well as a better fitting wheel.”
“Whatever we could reuse from the wheel that is structurally sound, we keep,” Jonathan Fleck, project manager for Custom Alloy Corporation, added.
Moreover, visitors of the mill will be able to better understand the wheel’s history and utility through a new mechanism added to the gears that will serve as “a small representation of the what the mill would be doing,” Muir said.
“It would be one belt and one operation. And when the school tours come through, they can experience that too,” Muir explained.
Muir had originally projected that the wheel would be completed in March of this year, but said delays were caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
“We had to be cautious. Custom Alloy built the wheel for us onsite, and we were going to stain glass and paint the wheel onsite, and with (COVID-19) they had restrictions, rightfully so, to protect their employees,” Muir said. “So we couldn’t have access, but we changed the plans, took some time, and brought the wheel over here to the Red Mill and set up a temporary painting operation at the back of the property.”
“We’re happy with where we are now, and it’s a good time to put the wheel in,” he added.
Despite the pandemic, Muir does not foresee a decline in interest among the tens of thousands of people who visit the Red Mill each year.
In fact, he predicts just the opposite.
“Already, there’s a lot of interest in just the fact that the wheel is being replaced,” Muir said. “And then to have the added ability to see how it functions inside the mill — I definitely think more people are going to come out and see that.”
The Red Mill Museum Village is currently open to the public on Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 6 p.m. Individuals interested in donating to the museum or learning more about the site and its upcoming events can visit the museum’s website.
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Caroline Fassett may be reached at cfassett@njadvancemedia.com.
The Link LonkSeptember 10, 2020 at 01:32AM
https://www.nj.com/hunterdon/2020/09/after-a-3-year-break-the-big-wheel-at-the-red-mill-will-keep-on-turning.html
After a 3-year break, the big wheel at the Red Mill will keep on turning - NJ.com
https://news.google.com/search?q=Wheel&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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