36 Main St, Roslyn, NY, 11576

Roslyn Grist Mill (Roslyn Mill Tea House)

1347 Old Northern Boulevard, Roslyn

Date Built1715
Original UseGrist Mill
Restoration StatusOngoing
Roslyn Landmark Society Covenant No
View House Tour Details 1989 Page 712
National Register of Historic Places

Project Files

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The Roslyn Grist Mill is a rare surviving Dutch-framed watermill built between 1715 and 1741 purposely built for industrial use (rather than farming). It operated as a working water mill for over 150 years.

• The building is located in the heart of the Village of Roslyn at the head of Hempstead Harbor.

• Roslyn Grist Mill's most unique feature is its utilization of Old World Dutch construction style. Its 1700s builders utilized the mill styles once found in the Netherlands and Zealand, which no longer exist in Europe. Accordingly, the Roslyn Grist Mill is one of the last Dutch type water mills in the United States. It is one of the significant sites to understand Long Island's unique Dutch/English architectural heritage.

• On April 24, 1790, the owner of the grist mill Hendrick Onderdonk was visited by President George Washington in his Roslyn residence adjoining the grist mill. Washington referred to the grist mill in his diary.

•In 1916, the Hicks family sold the mill to a board of five trustees including Harold Godwin , the grandson of William Cullen Bryant. Their goal was to restore the building to become a museum of industrial arts. From 1916 to 1917, the historic timber beams were reinforced and a concrete base was installed to support the foundation. Roslyn mason Romolo Caparrelli and Roslyn carpenter Stephan Speedling installed a concrete floor on the first floor and placed concrete on the exterior designed to appear like the original plank boards. The museum opened on June 30, 1917.

• From 1920 to 1974, the grist mill building served as a tea house and was a tourist attraction to the village.

• The building was placed on the National Historic Register of Historic Places in 1986.

• From 2015 to 2020, $3.1 million was from New York State, Nassau County, trusts foundations and members of the government grants, trust awards and members of the Roslyn Landmark Society.

• After 42 years of delays and planning, the restoration began in November 2018 by the Roslyn Landmark Society.

•On January 23, 2020, the structure was raised eight feet above ground level in order to construct a future new foundation. The new foundation was completed in November 2021. On May 28, 2022, the structure was lowered to street level for the first time in over 100 years.

-In April 2023, the restored historic timber frame was being re-installed.

The Roslyn Grist Mill Instagram Page

Historical Review (Adapted from the 1989 House Tour Guide (Page 712)

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND (1698-1916)
The grist mill at the head of Hempstead Harbor has been the focus of the village that is Roslyn today from the earliest days of settlement in the north part of Hempstead. The mill that stands at Old Northern Boulevard today is probably not the first one built on the site, but it is a 17th century type "Dutch" mill, and one ofthe few surviving commercial buildings built by a carpenter with a background in Dutch framing practices. Only two other "Dutch" type mills are known. These are the contemporary Plandome Mill on Manhasset Bay and the slightly later mill at Stony Brook.

Its beginnings are recorded in the minutes of a Hempstead town meeting held on April 2, 1698, when John Robeson "had lierti (liberty) granted to set up a grist mill and a fulling mill on ye streame at the hed of yt harboure.." providing that he have the mill in operation within two years. (Benjamin Hicks ed., North & South Hempstead Town Records, Jamaica, 1897, Vol 11, Pgs. 131-132). Robeson (whose name was sometimes spelled Robison, and later spelled Robinson) was first mentioned in the Town Records in February 1691-92, (Vol 11, Pgs. 110-111).

The mill should have opened early in 1700, but it apparently did not, as at a Town Meeting on April 1,1701, a committee declared that the 1698 agreement was made void by Robeson's default. By 1706, however, mention was made of a road leading from Robison's Mill Dam (Town Records, Vol. Ill, Pg. 77) and in 1709 John Robeson and his son, Joseph Robison (sic) sold to Charles Mott "one sartain grist Mill with ye dam and stream—a small frame of a house and one iron croo (crow? ed.) with some other Instruments, belonging to ye said .. . Mill." (Town Records, Vol III, Pg. 56).

When Charles Mott sold the mill for £120 to Jeremiah Williams on July 2, 1715, the deed's language stated explicitly that "John Robinson Builded a Grist Mill" on the stream of water "that leadeth Down to ye head of Hempstead Harbour" (Town Records, Vol. Ill, Pgs. 353-355). That mill, together with its iron crow and all other "ye instruments" was deeded to Jeremiah Williams.

The language of the next deed, 26 years later, strongly suggests that Jeremiah Williams, merchant, sold his grist mill to Thomas Pearsall of Cedar Swamp (Town Records, Vol. Ill, Pg. 370). This deed is of great interest, as it describes Williams' purchase of several pieces of land lying to the westward of the mill and its swamp which included two dwelling houses and a barn. In regard to the grist mill itself, the deed states: "And whereas the said Jeremiah Williams hath greatly Augmented ye Improvements on ye sd Stream of Water and Dam by Erecting a Large and Specias Mill Upon (it) and Greatly Advanced ye Said Mill Dam .. . as well as Built Several Dwelling Houses with a Barn and other Edifices Upon ye land.... "

The sale price of the grist mill and its lands in 1741 was £1050, and the purchase included the mill and mill house, stones, running gear, the two bolting mills standing within the mill together with the utensils used with them.

It is not possible to know when the "Large and Specias Mill" was built, but it was evidently done between 1715 and 1741, and the likelihood is that its owner built it early rather than late in his ownership.

On April 2, 1742, Thomas Pearsall Jr. (now of Hempstead Harbour) sold the mill and its adjacent lands and building to his son-in-law, Richard Mott, for £1050, the price for which he had purchased it 10 months earlier. However, the Pearsall Mott conveyance mentions "three bolting Mills instead of two" (Town Records, Vol. Ill, Pg. 375). Richard Mott, who had been called a "yeoman" in earlier Town Records, now changed his stated occupation to "bolter" and entered the trade that did more than any other to build up the exports of New York port. Just prior to his purchase of the mill, Richard Mott had bought from Adam Mott a 122-acre farm west of the road "that is on ye west Side of ye Swamp that Thomas Pearsall's Mill stands on."

Prior to the revolution, New England had its fisheries and lumber and rum distilleries to provide an exportable commodity. Virginia had tobacco and South Carolina had indigo and rice. But New York's fur trade, for which it was settled, could not support its consumption of imports. The answer was found in flour.

Hundreds of small operations like the Robeson-Williams grist mill, located near waterways with access to New York, were established to grind flour from farmers' grain. The flour went to New York where it was exchanged for goods, then, inspected and graded, it was shipped out to the West Indies, whose sugar products and cash were the basis of many a New York fortune.

Richard Mott died in 1743, and his executors sold the grist mill to John Pine on
March 30, 1744 (Deed mentioned in Town Records, Vol. IV, Pg 305). Pine further purchased from Thomas Pearsall the swamp at the head of Hempstead Harbor, the majority of which was under water in Pine's mill pond.

On March 30, 1758, John Pine sold the grist mill to Hendrick Onderdonk, "merchant," who may have been the first of its owners to run a store as well. Onderdonk owned the grist mill through the Revolution, and it was to his house (which is said to have been built by John Pine) that President George Washington came for breakfast on April 24, 1790.

Daniel Hoogland and Abraham Coles bought the grist mill on February 18, 1801 (Queens County, Liber H of Deeds, Pg. 13) together with extensive tracts of land, one on the west side of Main Street from the Clock Tower site south to Wilson Williams' land, one on the east side of upper Main Street that included the mill dam, and one north of the Clock Tower site and along Shore Road to the place once known as Appleby's Landing. In all, the lands purchased with the grist mill by Coles and Hoogland amounted to about 90 acres. This interesting deed mentions the Onderdonks' new paper mill," the Great Setling Spring" now in the north yard of the James & William Smith House (TG 1973-74 and 1984-85), at 106 Main Street, and the sand bank in back of the Smith house from which the paper mill dam was built.

Several Coles & Hoogland account books, the first of which begins in March 1803, give an idea of the business of the mill and its related country store. The records appear to have been kept in New York, and "received of Grist Mill" at intervals were bushels of bran and barrels of flour of various types. Presumably the mill's flour, vended, provided some of the capital for the "sundries" sent to the "concern at Hempstead Harbour," which appears to have been Coles & Hoogland's store. The purchases of local residents who shopped there were recorded in the book. James W. Smith, for example, bought an iron shovel during April 1807, as well as an assortment of threads and fabrics (he was a tailor), molasses, tea, flour, butter and spirits. Richard Valentine (who lost his property and "lay drunk in the mill creek" after the Revolution) bought pork, spirits, molasses, spirits, tea, candles and spirits!"

The next owner of the grist mill was Benjamin Allen, although his deed of
purchase has not yet been found. On November 15, 1828, Allen sold a half interest in the mill to John Willis, Jr. (Queens County, Liber X of Deeds, Pg. 425) and at the same time sold Willis 31acres on the west side of Main Street (Liber X, Pg. 428) as far south as land then owned by James Smith (near the driveway of No. 110 Main Street). Francis Skillman states, and earlier Tour Guide research confirms, that John Willis sold this land off in building plots, with the greatest concentration of sales during the spring of 1835. Francis Skillman writes that Jeremiah Reynolds actually ran the grist mill from 1828 until the arrival of Leonard Thorne nine years later. Reynolds, he says, also kept a tavern in "the yellow front house" (a house on today's Tower Street) and then he went to the Red Mill (Plandome Mill) in Port Washington.

Leonard Thorne bought a half interest in the mill from John Willis on June 25,
1838 for $5,000 (Queens County, Liber 54 of Deeds, Pg. 20) and 11 years later
Thorne sold his half interest in the grist mill to Joseph Hicks of Westbury, on
August 2, 1849 (Queens County, Liber 80 of Deeds, Pg. 314).

It is not yet known how or when the Hicks family acquired the remaining
half-interest in the mill, which was presumably still held by the heirs of Coles &
Hoogland, or Benjamin Allen. But Isaac Hicks, Joseph's youngest son, was its last
private owner. In 1916 he transferred it to a board of five trustees who were to
administer it "for the benefit of the town of Roslyn."

At the same time the building, which was falling into decay, was repaired and stabilized by Harold Godwin. The Robeson-Williams Grist Mill was thus one of this area's earliest projects in historic preservation. The Robeson-Williams Grist Mill was exhibited on previous Landmark Society Tours in 1976, 1977 and 1988.

GTR Historical Page

Restoring History at the Roslyn Grist Mill, October 16, 2020

Guide to Roslyn, Roslyn Times

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1996 164 2 238 print copy 1

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The earliest known photos of the Roslyn Grist Mill (1870 to 1900).

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2 Comments
Lisa Dryman-Rice

I have very fond memories of tea and cinnamon toast with my parents at the Old Mill in the mid-60s. It will be a great pleasure to see the place again.

Mark Schaier

Hardly anything left of the Old Grist Mill in it present state of restoration?

Howard KroplickMark Schaier

Mark, the historic timber frames are currently being restored. The building will be put back together over the next two years.