Starch is one of those things we sort of take for granted.

We use cornstarch to thicken pudding or gravy, and a spray can of starch if we want to stiffen a shirt collar.

Starch is the most common of the carbohydrates, and we’re told that we eat too much of it.

In the early 1800s, it wasn’t so easy to come by, and what people used came from potatoes.

According to Wilton history and family traditions, Esquire Samuel Abbot had an inquiring sort of mind. He had watched housewives prepare starch in small batches in their kitchens, grating the potatoes and then washing out the starch, which they dried. He thought there must be a way to produce it commercially in large batches.

In 1811, his brother, Deacon Ezra Abbot, began experimenting with machinery using potatoes grown on their farm. He devised a treadmill operated by a horse for power. All was done in total secrecy.

The brothers opened their first mill in 1812. Ezra’s machinery could process 12 bushels at a time, producing 8 pounds of starch, which he sold for about 20 cents a pound. He began to think about the starch that was used for sizing cotton cloth.

In 1818, Samuel and Ezra purchased an abandoned sawmill just over the border in Mason and began full-time operations. They built a dam, covered a sluiceway and constructed a two-story mill 60 feet by 30 feet with an ell for storage of potatoes.

Ezra designed and built all of the machinery. Local farmers were hired to raise the potatoes, for 8 to 12 cents per bushel, usually without being told what they would be used for. They invented a frame for weighing the farmers’ carts so they wouldn’t have to count bushels.

The operation was still secret, since the brothers didn’t want to patent the process for fear of copyists.

In 1820, E. and S. Abbot Co. began operations with 3,000 bushels of potatoes. They could work only in cool weather, because heat caused the potatoes to rot. If they didn’t complete the process in time, they packed the potatoes in ice.

The Abbots never managed to remove all of the starch. The residue ended up in Pratt Pond, where it produced great hay crops on the meadows.

In 1828, the mill mysteriously burned. Ezra inhaled hot smoke and never fully recovered. However, the mill was rebuilt. It burned again 11 years later and was rebuilt again.

In 1831, Ezra supervised the building of a starch mill in Jaffrey. Samuel leased it and ran it under his own name while Ezra ran the Mason operation. The Jaffrey mill burned in 1839, and Sam died later that year.

The spread of the potato blight in the 1840s increased the cost of potatoes, and large mills in Maine took most of them. The Abbots processed their last crop in 1852.

Ezra’s sons, Abiel and Harris, then owners of the mill, sold it. It was converted to a saw and stave mill.

Recently, David Potter, president of the Wilton Historical Society, presented a program on the mill and the processes created by his ancestors.

All that remains is a collection of well-preserved, and quite impressive, stone foundations in the Russell-Abbott State Forest on the border of Wilton and Mason. The site, about 1,000 acres, was acquired by the state between 1916 and 1939 through gifts from J.A. Russell, J.F. Abbot, L.A. Loring and E.R. Kimball.

Original work on the site was done by state relief crews and the Civilian Conservation Corps. They constructed trails, water holes and picnic areas, but those have disappeared into the forest. New trails have been constructed near the site and around Pratt Pond.

A multiuse management plan was created in 1989 with the preservation of the starch mill as a priority. Visitors are asked to be considerate of the site.

In 1955, Russell-Abbott was chosen as a site for introduction of hybrid chestnut trees. Some of those trees still existed in 2005.

The easiest access to the site is by way of Captain Clark Highway in Wilton. There is a small parking area near the junction with Abbott Hill Road, although directional signs are repeatedly vandalized.

But it’s worth hunting for.

Keep up with the past with Another Perspective, which runs every other week in The Telegraph. Jessie Salisbury can be reached at 654-9704 or jessies@tellink.net.

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