Folks at the Newlin Grist Mill are still fighting back against the ravaging effects of the April 30 rains that blasted through the main rock dam along Concord Creek. And on June 14, they received some help from musicians and guests attending a music festival.

A temporary dam has been breached three times since the original blast at the end of April. There are 3,800 sandbags with 705 tons of sand holding things together before the repairs are finished. Under the emergency permit, the repairs must be finished by July 8.

Tony Shahan, the director at the Newlin Grist Mill Park, said the bulk of the repair is done and water is flowing through the millrace, but there’s still some work needed to complete the job.

“We’ve had some unexpecteds, but they’re not bad unexpecteds,” Shahan said while people were setting up for the festival to benefit the repair efforts. “We’ve learned a lot about how the dam was originally built. What we’re looking at right now are two ends that remain from two separate dams.”

Shahan explained that the dam was actually two dams built side by side, but at two different time periods. The newer section is believed to have been built in the late 1880s, while the first section could date back to 1704. He said the size of the stones used was telling. Smaller rocks were used for the older section, but larger rocks that would have required the use of heavy machinery were used for the newer section.

“Where the dam breached [in April] is where they were connected,” Shahan added.

The finding has added about three more days to complete the work and added a little bit more to the price of fixing the problem. Repair costs were first estimated to be about $35,000. Now, Shahan said, the cost could be $40,000 to $45,000. In the interim, Concord Township donated $2,500 and Delaware County chipped in another $10,000. An online fund drive raised an additional $10,000 in its first six days. The mill had $25,000 in a reserve fund.

Shahan said he hoped the music festival would raise at least another $6,000. Admission to the festival was $20 per person.

The crowd may have been sparse at the start of the event, but more people arrived as the afternoon wore on. One of the early attendees was probably the one who traveled the farthest.

Don Newlin drove down from Lloydminster, a Canadian city that’s half in the province of Alberta and the other half in Saskatchewan.

Newlin thinks he’s descended from Nathaniel and Mary Newlin who settled in Concord Township and built the mill after coming to the colonies from England in 1683. He said he’s searched his family tree and went back as far as 1716 to John Newlin Jr. who would have been Nathaniel and Mary’s grandson, he said.

Other people were more local. Steve and Julie Leusner are from Chadds Ford Township. They came because they enjoy the mill’s park.

“It’s a beautiful place to walk,” said Julie Leusner. “It’s convenient and we like music.”

Dianna Neely, of Lower Merion, said she felt the same, but added that preservation is important.

“It’s vital to preserve an historic area like this. It’s beautiful and everyone should support it,” she said.

The festival went from noon to 8 p.m. with eight different bands playing a variety of music from classic rock to folk, bluegrass, blues and Irish.

One of the park’s blacksmiths, Jim Neubauer, was on hand making a candelabra that will be raffled off during an event at the end of June.