Not long ago we discussed the rehabilitation of Grovers Mill Pond — after Lake Mercer, West Windsor’s second largest body of water. As we all know, its rehabilitation was completed in 2008 with the help of dredging supervised by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Since that event, I am pleased to report that the pond is doing very well. Wildlife, including turtles, geese, ducks, herons, and several other old friends have returned for people to see and admire.
There are even a few regular fisherman now, but — so far — few if any boats, canoes, or kayaks. They will come back eventually if people find out that they can “put in” next to the boardwalk in Van Nest park — not actually from the boardwalk, but just beyond its northern end.
But many years ago — in the early 1930s to be exact — the pond underwent another major “renovation.” That time, however, the problem was not a build-up of silt and dead plant growth, but the ineffective way the mill itself was operating. As a result, the whole northern end of the pond where the water flows by the mill and under what is now Clarksville Road, was “modernized.”
At that time, the mill was still being used to grind corn and other grain to make flour and animal feed. But the old machinery was giving out and the system of handling the water as it flowed past needed improving. As a result, the owners — the Dey family — undertook major renovations. The plans for those renovations came to light when the more recent rehabilitation studies were being conducted by the four citizens’ committees that worked on the project during the past three decades. Some of the details are well worth recounting.
In the early days of the mill, what we call Clarksville Road did not exist as such. There was a way for traffic to cross the northern outlet of the pond before the water went past the mill, but it was a wooden bridge with planks that formed the roadway. Along the northern side of the bridge there was a row of five wooden gates hanging down into the water. The gates could be raised or lowered individually, depending on how much outlet flow was desired from the pond, depending on the conditions. There was an earthen dam that formed the northern boundary of the pond, but it was not as long as the embankment under Clarksville Road today. The bridge abutments and the gates served the same purpose then as the dam does today. (Note that the five-sided concrete structure over which the water now flows is not a dam. It is a spillway — see below.)
In addition to the gates in the early days there was the mill “outlet works,” the system for regulating the water that went under the road and entered the “millrace,” the channel next to the mill building where it turned the water wheel of the mill. The water entered the millrace through a large underground culvert that started in a vertical concrete headwall on the pond side of the bridge. (That headwall and culvert were removed during the recent renovation of the pond, since there was no longer any need for water to flow through the millrace.)
In 1931, after purchasing the mill, the Deys decided to modernize the system of handling the water used by the mill. The row of gates would be replaced by a concrete “drop spillway,” the five-sided structure we see there today. Downstream of the spillway there would be a concrete apron under the road and extending about 30 feet beyond the road with abutments or walls on both sides. In addition, the 400-foot-long earthen dam would be constructed across the entire northern boundary of the pond. Today the dam extends for a bit longer than the timber-faced guiderails on Clarksville Road.
That dam proved to be a key factor in the more recent pond renovation effort since its condition was by then regulated by the provisions of the Federal Dam Safety Act. One of the key regulations had to do with the growth of trees on an earthen dam such as this one. The theory was that if a large tree on a dam were to be blown down in a storm, the uprooted root ball could cause a large breach in the dam, thus causing serious flooding downstream. Since the dam was built before the passage of the Dam Safety Act, no one paid any attention as many trees grew in the soil on the top of the dam over many years.
Some were quite large, and they had to be removed as part of the dam upgrading before the final renovation of the pond could take place just a few years ago. Removal of those trees caused a good deal of negative comment in the community, but there was no choice. Now that the restored pond has been in place for more than six years, their absence is no longer controversial. I did keep a portion of one of the tree trunks as a souvenir, however.
One remnant of the 1931 renovation work on the pond remains on the concrete spillway today. While the concrete was still wet, the Deys’ two young sons, Richard and Lawrence Jr., used pebbles to form their initials in the rim of the structure on either side of the center. The pebbles are still there today: RCD and LCD. Richard later became the owner of the large farm on the east side of Rabbit Hill Road, which, when he retired from farming, he sold to developers who transformed it into Dey Farm Estates. His brother’s farm became known after development as Sherbrook Estates.
An important step in the 1931 renovation of the mill area was the eventual deeding of the right-of-way of Clarksville Road to Mercer County. Though the road that is now known by that name could be used before that to carry vehicles over what is now the crest of the dam, there was no responsibility before then for maintaining the roadway, including plowing snow and making repairs to the paving like those that were done just a few weeks ago.
During the more recent efforts to unearth the history of the pond leading to its eventual rehabilitation, another of the more fascinating historical tidbits to turn up was a photo of the “diving tower.” Shortly after the 1931 renovation work it became known that the pond was a good place to swim. Near the new spillway, the water was at least seven feet deep and quite clean, since there had been no time for new plant growth and animal detritus to affect the water. If the folks in Penns Neck could swim at the “sheep wash” (an area of the Millstone River near the property now owned by SRI) why couldn’t those in Grovers Mill swim in their pond? And so it was: a 10-foot diving tower was built in the pond about 10 feet off the shore and about 50 feet from the new spillway. There’s no record of how much it was used or for how long, but in photographs it looks quite strange at that location.
The mill continued in use until after the start of World War II, when a shortage of manpower caused it to cease operation. The grinding of grain had continued until then, and all of the mill machinery had been in use, including the large scale that stood at ground level near the present entrance to the mill. At the end of the war the mill building was the site of a retail business run by Dey’s brother-in-law Bill Denison, who was then the sole owner. He sold garden implements and supplies. He used the upper areas of the mill building for product storage. The Deys continued to own the dam and the pond itself, however, until they gave them to the township in 1983.
For some time during the 1960s and ’70s the mill was the stopping place for the Mercer County Bookmobile, a vehicle that made the rounds of the rural areas of the county every week with a selection of books for residents to borrow. This was long before the current county branch library was built near the West Windsor municipal center.
In 1974 the mill building was sold by Denison to the Schwartz family, who used part of the first floor of the building as a graphic arts studio. The remainder of the first floor was used for art exhibitions at which visitors were welcome. The upper areas were used to raise “exotic” flowering plants under artificial lighting. The Schwartzs, who owned the mill for about two decades, used some of the old mill machinery very effectively in their art exhibits on the main floor. During that time, the barn across the road was still used by a lawn mower repair and sales business.
