​In the late nineteenth century, when small water-powered industries dotted the landscape of northern New Jersey, one of the most intriguing local landmarks stood along Diamond Brook. Known as the Marinus Mill, the structure once harnessed the steady flow of the brook to power its machinery and served as a small but important reminder of the region’s early industrial activity.

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In 1870, David Marinus, great-grandson of a Revolutionary War Captain who served in the Continental Army with George Washington during the campaign on Long Island in the summer of 1776, himself a Civil War veteran, built the Marinus Saw Mill along the Diamond Brook. He helped found the Borough of Glen Rock in 1894 and served on our first town council. The Marinus family remained in Glen Rock into the late 20th century, shaping its earliest civic and economic life.

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The Marinus Mill was located along Diamond Brook, a stream that earlier residents referred to as Bass Brook. Like many mills of the era, its placement was no accident. Before widespread electrification, water provided a reliable and renewable source of energy. The brook’s current turned a large water wheel that powered the mill’s internal machinery, enabling it to process materials and support local economic activity.

Streams such as Diamond Brook were essential to nineteenth-century communities. Mills often became local centers of work and commerce, drawing farmers, craftsmen, and laborers who depended on the mechanical power provided by the turning wheel.

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One of the few surviving visual records of the Marinus Mill is a photograph taken around 1890, showing the structure not long before its disappearance. Images like this offer a rare window into the community’s industrial past. The building itself reflected the practical design typical of water-powered mills—solidly constructed and positioned carefully beside the brook so the waterwheel could capture the stream’s energy.

By the end of the nineteenth century, however, many small mills faced decline. Advances in transportation, steam power, and later electricity made water-powered operations less economically viable. Larger industrial facilities elsewhere began to replace the smaller local mills that had once been central to community life.

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Eventually, the Marinus Mill ceased operations, and the structure was removed. Yet its story did not entirely vanish with the building. Local tradition holds that when the mill was dismantled, the water wheel and heavy machinery were simply too large and cumbersome to transport away. Rather than removing them, workers reportedly buried the massive components beneath what is now the street near the intersection of Rock Road and The Boulevard. If the stories are true, remnants of the old mill still lie hidden underground, resting quietly beneath modern pavement.

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Today, there is little visible evidence of the Marinus Mill along Diamond Brook. The stream still flows, but the building, wheel, and machinery have long since disappeared from view. Yet the legend of the buried mill parts remains one of the more fascinating pieces of local lore.

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For historians and residents alike, the Marinus Mill serves as a reminder that beneath familiar streets and neighborhoods lie traces of an earlier world—one powered not by electricity or engines, but by the steady turning of a water wheel in a small brook once known as Bass Brook.

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