Will Melton
Captain Slarrow, Major Montague, and the 1774 North Leverett Sawmill
The 1774 Slarrow’s Sawmill was built by Captain Joseph Slarrow, the son of some of the earliest Presbyterian Irish immigrants to Massachusetts. Slarrow’s business, political, and military partner was Major Richard Montague, who adopted the radical principles of the 18th century Baptists. These two religious dissenters were critical as early leaders of Leverett, one of the last two towns established under the colonial government of Massachusetts Bay. The passion Slarrow and Montague developed for the Revolutionary cause ensured that their fellow citizens attending a January 1777 Town Meeting “voted unanimously to risque our lives & fortunes in defence of our rights & liberties wherewith God & nature hath made us free.” In an 18th century version of multi-tasking, the sawyers/soldiers simultaneously developed a productive lumber enterprise while also participating in Gen. Washington’s military operations in MA and NY. Slarrow’s Sawmill helped to launch an enduring, water-powered industrial corridor along the five miles of the Sawmill River’s fall from Lake Wyola to the Connecticut River, and helped found a new Massachusetts community by creating jobs, and producing lumber for industry, bridges, churches, and homes.
The professional recording of this session was funded by a Preserving America grant from Americana Corner.
[Recorded on 12 August 2023]
Will Melton retired in 2015 after four decades in university and museum fundraising to devote time to gardening, his mandolin ensemble, and history studies and writing. Liberty’s War, An Engineer’s Memoir of the Merchant Marine 1942-45, which he published in 2017, is available from U.S. Naval Institute Press.
