Kenyon Corn Meal Company

Usquepaugh, RI - This is Kenyon Corn Meal Company aka Kenyon's Grist Mill. The mill was built in 1886 and is still in use. Originally, farmers would bring their corn or "grist"(grain that was separated from its chaff in preparation for grinding*)to be ground and the mill would keep some as payment. In 1909 C.D.Kenyon bought the mill and saw the potential of putting the ground meal into bags and branding it with the Kenyon name. He sold it by horse and buggy originally and in 1919 he bought a Model T truck and expanded to all of Rhode Island and parts of Connecticut and Massachusetts.



They still grind the grains the old fashioned way with these original 2 and a half ton granite stones that were milled in Westerly RI. Hopefully I will get this correct. The way this process works is the grain is feed into the hopper on top of the round wooden thing on the right of the photo, this thing holds the stone which in tern sits atop another stone. The grain falls into the hole in the top stone and goes outward in grooves between the stone and gets ground. The consistency is controlled by how fast the grain is put into the hopper and the distance between the stones. Check out their website for more details.

Across the street is their store that sells their meals, flours, and mixes.They also sell other Rhode Island foods such as Chowders, Indian Pudding, Jams and Jelly's, even RI Maple Syrup.

Behind the mill is a pond at the end of is this dam. In the early days the grinding stones were run by water power, now a days it is run by electricity.

Information and a lot of other good stuff is at their website. Be sure to check it out and be sure to come to their festivals held a few times a year.