Historic Structure Back Underground At Stony Brook Grist Mill

BREWSTER – In the winter of 2025, construction crews unearthed an historic wooden sluiceway in the upper headrace pond located on the south side of Stony Brook Grist Mill adjacent to the mill. Today, after detailed documentation and preservation, town officials say the structure is once again part of the sluiceway and will stay there for the foreseeable future.

Sluiceways throughout Stony Brook Mill help herring navigate through the fish passage. They are manmade structures that support the journey through a passage where gravity is working against the fish. 

While work continued throughout the mill, further updates to the specific site were delayed while state officials documented and preserved the artifact. According to Chris Miller, director of natural resources, partners of the project worked with the Public Archaeological Laboratory (PAL) to investigate and document the structure. 

The old sluiceway was first encountered by crews working on updates to the upper headrace pond, following a plan to update the retaining wall and fish passage. Over the course of the project, sections of the site have been opened to allow fish passage, specifically during the herring run in mid-March.

PAL confirmed the structure was historic, crafting a full report that was submitted to the Massachusetts Historical Commission. Miller said they recommended leaving the structure in place beneath a new liner in the pond. 

After recovering the object, crews used a “step footing to avoid it when constructing the retaining wall on the east side of the pond,” he said. 

The structure has now been reburied and work on the pond has been finished. 

“This was completed and we are now working on the north side of Stony Brook Road,” Miller wrote in an email. “Because the work on the south side ran into the fall (and is now snow-covered) we haven’t reopened that side to the public quite yet. We want to complete the work on the north side and clear out the parking area first.”

He followed up by saying work should be done on the north side in time for the herring run this spring and final site restoration may not be finalized until the ground has thawed and grass can bloom.

Unearthing the historic artifact caused major delays as crews were unable to continue work until the structure was documented and preserved according to state regulations. Weather has caused other delays within the original projected timeline. 

“While we recognize the project has been disruptive over the past year or so, all of the south side improvements have almost been completed, and the new weirs on the north side are set to be finished in the next few weeks – just in time for the spring herring run,” Town Manager Peter Lombardi wrote in an email. “A reminder that this project is almost exclusively funded through federal grants and it represents long-term investments in this historic site that will be in place for many years to come.”

Lombardi also said that all in-water work will be completed by March 15, which is consistent with state permits taken out for work on the site.