After the 1874 flood, Factory Village in Middlefield, present day Town Hill Road was never the same. The Church and Blush Mills and dams lined Factory Brook with top producing woolen mills in the country. Merino wool had its beginnings here in Middlefield. The mills operated by water power via the control of Factory Brook and reservoirs. The brook was one of the quickest in Western Mass. Fire burned Uriah Church’s upper mill in 1871 and rebuilt. Water power was both productive and destructive, as it still is today. Some of the foundations of the upper mills still stand on DCR property. Alec Gillman narrated our tour during the Middlefield History Group Hike.

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