A saw-mill had been built in the township in 1802, the year form which the settlement dates. The prompt action of the proprietors in providing a saw-mill encouraged emigrants to the township. A few years later a set of stones had been placed in the basement of the saw-mill for grinding corn and rye, bu the patrons of this very imperfect machinery complained of an undue percentage of sawdust in the meal thus obtained, and the inhabitants of the township were anxious for a mill that would give them the material for purer food.

The Grant family, who had owned and run the was mill from the beginning, had become involved in debt, and were in no condition to confer upon the township the boon of a grist-mill. In 1810, the ownership of the mill property was transferred to Mr. Sanger, one of the proprietors of the township, to satisfy a claim he had on it. Mr. Sanger soon sold it to Isaac Wheeler, Esq., who in turn sold it to Mr. Church of Clinton, Maine. Mr. Church was an enterprising man and a skilled mechanic. The following year he built a small but convenient house on the mill brow, west of the site of the present village saw-mill, and moved his family into it. A depression on the surface of the ground still reveals the site of the house.

Having provided a shelter for his family, he built a grist-mill upon the site of the present grist-mill. From a block of granite found near the mill he fitted a run of stones with his own hands, and performed nearly all of the labor involved in the construction of the mill. It was accounted a good mill for the times, and was patronized by the inhabitants of this and neighboring townships.

The house built by Mr. Church was occupied by his own family as long as he remained in town. It was afterwards occupied by Reuben Bartlett, who emigrated to Garland from Nottingham, N. H., about the year 1819, and purchased the mill property. About the year 1826 he built the more commodious house now owned by Fred Osgood, and sold the house built by Mr. Church to Samuel Johnson, who moved it to the site now occupied by the Eugene French house. In 1829, Benjamin H. Oak of Exeter purchased this house, and the forty acres of land connected with it and moved into it in the spring of 1830, where he lived until his death in 1842. About the year 1844, it had passed into the hands of Rev. Leonard Hathaway, who took it down to give place to a larger and better house, where he passed the remaining years of his earthly life.