A Chance Encounter

Teegate

Administrator
Site Administrator
Sep 17, 2002
25,951
8,694
All,

We headed out as usual this morning with our first stop more of a reconnaissance mission to see if a state property monument was located where I expected it to be. It was next to a house and I decided to bail out and I will return on one of my early morning explorations which I will be resuming soon. The next location I wanted to visit was in the woods almost across from the Pic-A-Lilli Inn on 206. There are two stones in that area and we were going to check on one. With the traffic zipping by I decided to park on the east side of 206 at the entrance to the old sawmill next to the Pic. We exited my car and headed into the brier infested woods on the west side. We were only 10 feet into the woods when a truck coming south crossed over and parked by my car. Unknown to them we were watching. Two men got out and circled my car and then quickly headed back to the sawmill.

I blew this off and we continued on with only 200 feet to go. A quick search and I realized this would be harder than I expected and I again felt I should just return at a later date. As we exited the woods the men were coming towards us realizing the car was mine. The younger man drifted towards the vehicle with the older man not hesitating and he came towards me. I then found myself having to explain what I was doing there as my car may have been parked off of the state highway property. Fortunately, he was quite nice, and I soon realized he was the owner. I quickly mentioned a few old piney names that I figured he may know, and in no time he and I were on the same page. Obviously, this caused us both to relax and I took the opportunity to ask if I could take his photograph. He was fine with that, and with his sawmill in the background I pushed the button. If you have never met him this is Lew (Spike) Wells, the owner of the sawmill. His name may be spelled Lou but I am not sure.



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Apparently, he has returned to the area and will soon be starting the sawmill up again, and after asking him if I could stop in he informed me that if I do I could photograph him in action. You can be sure I will title my photograph with the name and location of this pine barren sawmill :D


Guy
 

woodjin

Piney
Nov 8, 2004
4,342
328
Near Mt. Misery
I met his wife back in september and she had mentioned that they were considering moving to Maine where they had some property. She was saying that there wasn't much work at the sawmill. It is good to know they plan on using the mill again. She referred to her husband as Spike. I saw both of them recently at my neihbor's viewing. Spike was very talkative and it appears fairly well known amoung older residents. Cool experience, Guy.
 

ecampbell

Piney
Jan 2, 2003
2,889
1,029
Hey that's Lew, I used to buy sawdust off him. We had beers at the Pic. The saw mill is very interesting.
 

Pan

Explorer
Jul 4, 2011
583
265
Arizona
"will soon be starting the sawmill up again"

Do they still run the watermill-powered sawmill at Batsto? They used to run it on holidays.
 
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