Ward Clapboard Mill: A Moretown Business Still Making Vermont the Old Way

Drive through Moretown Village and there's a building you could pass without realizing what is happening inside.

Wood is still being turned into traditional clapboards here.

Not as a demonstration.

Not for a historical exhibit.

As a business.

The story reaches back more than a century, to a time when the Mad River wasn't merely scenery running through Moretown.

It was power.

The River Brought Hiram Ward to Moretown

Hiram O. Ward began his milling operation in nearby Duxbury.

But water determined where mills could succeed, and the Mad River offered something valuable as it dropped through Moretown: enough force to power mill machinery.

In the early 1870s, Hiram purchased a gristmill on the site where today's clapboard mill operates.

More mills followed.

Moretown became the headquarters of the Ward Lumber Company, and the operation eventually became the town's largest employer.

That alone would make Ward an important piece of Moretown history.

Except the story didn't end there.

Imagine Logging Before Trucks

This is where the history gets good.

The early operation depended on men, horses and winter.

Loggers worked in the hills, cutting and moving enormous logs with teams of horses.

The mill's own historical account describes horses trained to haul logs and even return to loggers on their own.

Horses remained in the mill yard until 1945.

One local teamster, Sam Farnsworth, apparently made a particularly convincing argument for horsepower after a ten-wheel truck carrying 30,000 pounds of logs became stuck in the mud.

He hitched his horses to it.

And helped pull the truck out.

You couldn't invent a much more Vermont story.

Moretown Became a Lumber Town

Ward's operation grew considerably.

Hardwoods were processed for products such as furniture and flooring. Softwoods supplied the construction industry.

Much of the lumber was destined for Boston.

Before modern highways and interstate trucking, it traveled from Moretown to Middlesex, where it could be loaded onto railcars for the trip south.

The company's influence extended well beyond the mill itself.

The Ward family accumulated thousands of acres of forestland, and later generations developed extensive reforestation efforts.

Community members joined spring planting days, planting rows of pine and spruce seedlings. According to the mill's history, operations would shut down so people could participate.

Think about that image:

A lumber company stopping production so people could plant the next forest.

Then the Industry Changed

Moretown's economy changed, just as Vermont's did.

Old mills disappeared.

Transportation changed.

Logging changed.

Manufacturing changed.

The Ward Lumber Company's larger operation didn't remain what it once was.

But one part survived.

The clapboard mill.

The Town of Moretown's current plan still identifies the historic Ward Clapboard Mill as a business operating in the village, producing clapboards with some of its original equipment.

The Family Changed. The Mill Stayed.

Hiram Ward's great-great-grandson Holly Ward eventually ran the mill.

After his death in 2016, ownership passed outside the Ward family.

But not very far.

Moretown residents Jan and Christine Tierson, who lived less than 100 yards from the mill, became its owners.

The company's history says they have continued the tradition of producing radially sawn clapboards, including work performed on original machinery.

There's something fitting about that.

The family name remained on the mill.

The machinery kept running.

And the business stayed in Moretown.

What Makes the Clapboards Different?

This isn't mass-market vinyl siding being produced on a giant automated line.

Ward specializes in vertical-grain, radially sawn wood clapboards.

The method exposes the wood grain differently than conventional flat-sawn lumber and produces the traditional siding appearance associated with many historic New England homes.

The company sells directly from the Moretown mill and ships throughout the country. Its products are also carried by lumber yards in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

Which means something made in this little Vermont village can end up on a house hundreds or thousands of miles away.

Ward Clapboard Mill

The Buildings Around Us Carry Stories

There's another reason I like this business for a real estate series.

We spend a lot of time talking about Vermont houses.

Farmhouses.

Capes.

Greek Revivals.

Old village homes.

People admire the proportions, windows, trim and siding without necessarily thinking about where those materials came from.

Businesses like Ward were part of the system that built New England.

Forests supplied logs.

Local rivers powered machinery.

Mills produced building materials.

Railroads moved them.

Carpenters turned them into houses.

And some of those houses are still standing.

⭐ Nathan's Hidden Gem: Notice the Siding

Here's my challenge the next time you're driving through an older Vermont village:

Look at the houses differently.

Don't just look at the architecture.

Look at the clapboards.

Look at how narrow they are.

Look at how they've weathered.

Look at the corners, trim and details.

Then remember that in Moretown, people are still making this traditional building material.

On a site where milling has taken place since the 1800s.

That's a pretty remarkable connection between the Vermont we photograph and the Vermont that actually built it.

What Ward Clapboard Mill Says About Moretown

It's tempting to describe Vermont towns entirely through scenery.

Mountains.

Rivers.

Covered bridges.

Fall foliage.

But towns were built around work.

In Moretown, the Mad River powered mills. The surrounding forests supplied timber. Generations of people made their living cutting, hauling and manufacturing wood.

Ward Clapboard Mill keeps a small piece of that working history alive.

Not behind glass.

Not as a reenactment.

By turning on the machinery and going to work.