The road in front of the Mill House was the old colonial road. Over the years, the road was raised some six to eight feet due to road flooding. We dug out the dirt that filled in on the side of the house over the past two hundred and fifty years in anticipation of repairing the foundation; we discovered an old gristmill stone that dates back to the mid 1700’s. Millstones were expensive and even after they became chipped or unusable our ancestors believed in recycling, even back then. This “runner stone” placed in front of the lower loading door, level with the original foundation and used as a stepping-stone. Over the year’s four foot of dirt buried this piece of history. As with most things in life millstones came in pairs and to our great fortune, our neighbors across the road at the Roosevelt house had the mate called the “bed stone” resting in the bottom of the well in the retreat garden. The Dalton Farms Association guardians of the Roosevelt House and Garden retreat kindly consented to donate the bed stone to the town for displaying at it’s original home. The runner stone is made of flinty quartz-bearing granite that was made here in colonial America. It was used mostly for grinding corn as well as wheat. This stone is not smooth but pocked with sharp-edged holes that add cutting edges to the surface. The air pockets also helped cool the grain as it was being grounded. If the grain got to too hot it actually could start to burn, thus the miller literally had to “keep his nose to the grindstone”