In the middle of October, 2006, the Grade Seven students at Brewer Middle School took a field trip to a building that they had seen from a distance for most of their lives, but had never visited up close. The tour guides were various city officials and the future developers of the old paper mill. It was raining quite hard and the students were poorly equipped with flashlight, which added to the overall effect of the visit. What follows are the essays, as written, by roughly half of the students. The essays are presented as written by the students, hoping to preserve their turns of phrase, their usages and their idiosyncrasies as writers.

Erin Dalton
As I walked through the dark and cold paper mill, I realized that this mill wasn't just a place for making paper it once was a little town that has slowly gone away. It was hard to picture people working in such a big and dark place. 

This was a place for families to work. People that had worked there said that there fathers and grandfathers had worked there. But now the only life in the mill is the birds. I talked with one of the tour guides and I asked her if she believes that the mill is hunted. She said it depends who you ask. As we walked the only thing I was thinking was that I hoped that it would get to a brighter. When we finally got to a bright place it wasn't the best place to be. There was leaking water and big giant holes. Walking through all I could think was, "don't fall in the holes!" The teachers didn't make it better they were yelling make sure that you don't fall in the big holes. Then I heard a girl scream. Someone probably grabbed her leg.    

As we walked through I couldn't help but notice the clothes on the ground. Yes you heard me, clothes on the ground. There were bottles and pipes on the ground to. I was thinking they must have been in a hurry to leave because there was so munch things on the ground. I even saw a dead bird. There were certificates that they won and a good luck message that someone had written to the workers. We walked down some stairs to a large room were there was an elevator door were workers carved in there names and the dates they worked there. The earliest date I saw was 1918. The room was dark and dusty. There were big giant puddles. On our way up the stairs dust came in my mouth and eyes. It was gross! Our last stop was an open room, bright were the contractor asked us what we wanted in the mill. People said dace floor and hockey rink. Some people wanted a restaurant.     

At the beginning of the trip I didn't know why we were there but after I knew we why we had gone, to learn about Brewers history.

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