The Legend of Gris Tomas Mille

Haunted Mill

Among the many questions we are asked about Manor Mill is whether it is haunted. We have long been told that the first miller, who we think worked for Jacob Bull, was an unlikely Frenchman named Gris (pronounced "Gree" though his friends called him "Gray") Tomas Mill, who arrived by boat sometime in the early 1700s with his wife Fleur. We were saddened -- though not surprised -- to learn that Gris apparently lost his arm one day in the middle of a beautiful October day, after a mechanical failure caused by a slipped axle tied directly to the 24' overshot water wheel. Apparently the wheel was spinning so fast, as Fleur described in a newly discovered diary, that the paddles were just a blur.

Legend has it that because Gris was such a loyal, hard-working man of unconditional faith in both the spiritual and eternal nature of water, his lost arm never died, and in fact came to help him and his wife in countless -- and occasionally unremarkable -- ways. Stories of the immortal arm will of course be relayed over time as we uncover them.

Many believe that Gris returns to the mill for just a short period of time. While we welcome his presence, and that of his wife and dog, we had no choice but to forewarn our guests that it may very well be haunted.

Gravestones

The modest gravestones made of hewn logs for Gris Tomas Mille (1722-1792) and his wife Fleur Roue Mille (1731-1802).

Tools

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When we first stumbled upon the hidden workshop of Gris T Mille, the original miller from the 1700s, we couldn’t help but ask: what was he up to? We’re not feint of heart here but this sent chills up our spine. We hoped his visit definitively would end on Halloween, 2021.

Millstone

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When do you know if a spirit has revealed itself, and when is it just a coincidence? Such were the thoughts racing through our minds that day when, clearing some brush from behind a relocated propane tank, a flash of bone-white poked through the ground. With all the discussion about a haunted mill, our hearts fluttered. A skeleton? An unmarked grave? No, it was neither, but rather an unusual rock, to be sure, with a flat edge and an even thickness, speckled and pocked. Moss clung to it, a shawl of sorts, which turned out to cover more rocks that were also just like it. And, with that, as if Gris Tomas Mille (correction to prior posts: as a Frenchman, his true last name was “Mille” but was later shortened to “Mill” by way of cultural assimilation) were making a bemused but unassuming entrance into a party. Here, now, was a buried millstone, arriving out of the ground. We couldn’t believe our eyes.

Stone by stone, we pulled and extracted each one from the soft earth, then laid it down to admire the craftsmanship. This millstone was a geometric puzzle, straight lines transecting each other, bound by a circle, with pieces that only when made whole can do the job.

But then. As if one millstone weren’t enough. As if Gris were at that very moment reaching for Fleur to bring her back for one more skip through the mill -- the spiritual eclipsed the coincidental when a second millstone turned up, covered in grass and weeds. But it was not just a pile of millstone pieces; it was nearly fully assembled. We can’t help but haplessly reach for meaning: did Gris fall apart toward the end of his life, or did Fleur? Who kept themselves whole? Who was whom, coming out of the ground?

It was too much to interpret for one day, but we know this: if there were doubts yesterday that Gris and Fleur had arrived, we knew then they were here.