Longfellow's Wayside Inn Mill

The Wayside Inn Grist Mill was commissioned by automobile manufacturer Henry Ford in the 1920s as a working reproduction of an early American gristmill. Ford purchased the historic Wayside Inn property and invested in preserving the surrounding area as an authentic colonial-era landmark.

The mill is a reproduction built in the 1920s, not an original colonial-era structure. However, it functions as an authentic working gristmill using a water-powered stone-wheel system to grind grain, demonstrating the technology that would have been used in early America.

The Wayside Inn inspired Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1863 poetry collection "Tales of a Wayside Inn," which fictionalized storytelling among guests at the inn. The inn, which dates to 1716, is one of the oldest operating inns in the United States and was already a literary landmark when Ford acquired it.

Yes, the mill is located on the grounds of Longfellow's Wayside Inn in Sudbury, Massachusetts, and is open to visitors as part of the historic site. The surrounding property also includes other preserved historic structures that Ford maintained as part of his vision for an early American heritage complex.