-3- 
     
    
   
   
    
     The pictures in MacQueen's book, of the neighbouring groups 
     
     gathered in work, ceilidhs, and church explain how that def— 
     
     icit of wealth was made up. This is one of such pictures -- 
     
     "Young men and women gathered in crowds and worked with 
     
     reaping hooks in the small fields surrounded by woods. Lit 
     
    

    
     up by flaming birchbark torches on the end of long poles, 
     
    

    
     the scene was an animating one." The close-knit early comm- 
     
     unity was a self—sufficient one, reaping their harvest, taking 
     
     it home in homemade‘linen sacks on horseback, carrying it in 
     
     rowboats to Acorn's mill in Pownall to be milled, curing a 
     
    
   
   
    
     "notable" cheese in grain stacks for a "distinctive flavoring." 
     
    
   
   
    
     When Donald Nicholson built the first grist mill on the 
     
     Orwell River in 1830, he heralded a new era/for Orwell. This 
     
     mill was built about 300 or 400 yards above the spot later 
     
     crossed by Orwell bridge. This mill was built by William 
     
     Harris, a millwright from Devon, who later married Nicholson's 
     
     daughter. It was Operated by Donald Nicholson and later by 
     
     his son Peter. or "Patrick Stenscholl". A half mile up stream 
     
     George Gay, who had settled in OrWell from Lot 49 before l829, 
     
     built a sawmill. This farm and mill were sold to John Fletcher 
     
     and his wife Carloine Hayden of Vernon River. Fletcher oper- 
     
     ated the sawmill and in 1840 or 45 built another grist mill. 
     
     At this time. then. there were three mills in Orwell. provid- 
     
     ing occupation and a center of activity for the area. The 
     
    
   
   
    
     I miller, by an act of the 183h Legislature, was paid a toll for