Peveril Meigs Tide Mill Research Collection

The Meigs Tide Mill Research Collection

Peveril Meigs (1903 – 1979) was an historical geographer whose professional life began in Baja California, where he focused on and wrote about arid landscape, early Dominican missions and native peoples of the area. After his retirement, his attention turned to tide mills. In 1968, he received a grant from the American Philosophical Society to study tide mills that allowed him to research sites along the Atlantic Coast from Nova Scotia to Georgia. Although he planned to write a book on the subject, he died having penned only a few short articles. The bulk of his research papers and photographs make up this collection.

In 2019, the papers were donated by to the Tide Mill Institute by Peveril's grandson, Stephen Meigs, and the collection was transferred to the Maine State Library in 2024. The Tide Mill Institute and Maine State Library are working together to improve discovery of and access to the collection through this digital repository.