Antique Water-Powered Equipment Keeps New York Cider Mill Going
1870s Lesner water turbine waterwheel powers century-old equipment at Fly Creek Cider Mill & Orchard
Linda Goodwin
October 2000
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The Fly Creek Cider Mill & Orchard, near Cooperstown, N.Y., puts vintage equipment to work, including nearly 100-year-old pieces.
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At the Fly Creek Cider Mill & Orchard, near Cooperstown, N.Y., vintage equipment is put to work.
Each year, more than 20,000 gallons of cider are pressed there, using century-old equipment.
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“There are easier ways to make cider than with this old equipment,” says Bill Michaels, who owns the mill with his wife, Brenda. “But then we’d lose our uniqueness.”
Fly Creek, notable for its extremely fast flow, has generated power for mills for more than 150 years. A cider press was first operated at what is now known as the Fly Creek Cider Mill in 1856. Equipment used there today was manufactured just 20 years later, in the mid-1870s.
1870s Lesner water turbine provides power
The mill’s power source is a belt-driven Lesner water turbine waterwheel manufactured by Wm. B. Wemple & Sons in Fultonville, N.Y., in the early 1870s. It is typical of waterwheels used in that era in mills and canal locks throughout central New York.
Prior to 1948, Fly Creek’s Lesner is thought to have been used by the Aqueduct Assn. (later known as the Cooperstown Water Co. Waterworks). It also once powered an extensive woodworking operation, including a wood lathe, planer and jigsaw. Barrel bungs were turned on the wood lathe, and lumber was finished on a planer 3 feet wide. (Even the sawdust was used: In the early days it was used to insulate ice harvested from the mill pond in the winter.) Comprehensive restorations of the turbine were conducted in 1969 and 1991.
The turbine, located 12 feet beneath the center of the mill, is activated by water piped in from the mill pond to a holding tank. As water drops from the tank into the turbine, the turbine begins to spin, setting the cider press’s pump in motion via belt drives. The pump generates up to 2,000 pounds of pressure per square inch, a fairly genteel pace in comparison to modern equipment. Still, the system has its merits.
“One of the unique things about this is that it is both water powered and water hydraulic,” Bill says.
Should the water level drop, the mill’s back-up power source kicks in – a 1924 25 hp Waterloo Boy Type T gas engine.
Pressed into service: Boomer & Boschert cider press
The mill’s Boomer & Boschert cider press, which dates to 1889, is housed on the second floor. Whole, washed apples are run up an elevator to the second floor, dropped through a grinder and processed.
That mixture (referred to as “pomace”) is poured into wooden tubs. Each tub holds four bushels (or about 250 pounds) of chopped apples. The filled tubs then move to the press on a rotating turntable.