From a note sent by Donovan Bowley 6/30/2007

Abel Fish built the first Grist Mill and Ephraim Bowley built
the first sawmill in town. These were both at the outlet for
"Lower Boggs Pond", now known as Fish Pond after the first
miller. My source for this information was Anna Hardy's History
of Hope and notes from my great-grandfather, Westbra Bartlett
Bowley. He also quoted an old rhyme from one of Ephraim Bowley's
employees, "Pard" Robbins - "The Bowley Boys, they built a
mill/To spite old Fish, King, Church, and Will/And when it went,
it made a noise/Because it was made by the Bowley Boys."

Old Fish was Abel Fish, and his sons were King, Church, and
Willis. Hart's Mill came later, and was further downstream. The
noise, of course, came because it was a sawmill, and much more
sound issued forth than would from a grist mill. I don't know
whether this irritated Abel, or just what was the "spite" cited
by Robbins - perhaps it was the use of the millpond to float
logs to the mill and consequent jams at the dam and sluiceway.
"Because it was made by the Bowley Boys" was because they were
lumbermen and sawmill operators.

The early Bowleys in Maine were blacksmiths and millwrights,
and built sawmills in several places in Maine, notably at
Bowley's Mills in Carthage and Bowley Brook in Weld as well
as the mill at South Hope and possibly on the Pemaquid River
in Bristol on land owned there by Ephraim before he moved to
Barretstown Plantation. Their lumber operations were responsible
for clearing much land in South Hope and adjacent Camden
(now West Rockport), as attested by the many deeds in Lincoln
and Knox Registries as they bought land, lumbered it, and sold
the cleared land.