Milling Around Germantown

In the lazy, hot and hazy days of summer we seek out the swimming pools to cool off and have fun. But for grain farmers, the first crop is ripe and the hard work of harvesting has just begun. As you drive along the byways and rustic roads of the Upcounty you can see the golden fields of wheat, barley, rye and oats waving in the breeze. Corn takes longer to grow and will not be ready in this area until August. A century and a half ago the farmer would separate the grain from the stalks at his farm, load the grain in bags on a wagon and take them to the nearest water-powered grist (grain) mill to be made into flour.

Mills were a necessity for the early settlers, for without them they would have to grind their flour and meal by hand -- a slow and tedious process, and one which only produced enough flour for the family. With a mill handy a farmer could sell his excess flour and meal at the market in a town or city. The miller, who was usually paid in grain by the farmer, could also make a tidy profit at the market. Even from the early times, however, most mills were owned by a businessman, large land owner, or farmer and were leased to a professional miller.

There were other kinds of mills in the area as well as grist mills. Saw mills were often placed side-by-side, or sometimes even in the same building, as a grist mill. A saw mill, using a long vertical blade attached to a shaft until the round blade was invented in 1810, sawed logs into planks for houses, barns and furniture. Flaxseed oil mills turned the seeds of flax, also grown locally in the 19th century, into oil. Cloth mills operated carding machines and looms for turning wool into cloth. Fulling or felting mills turned woven woolen cloth into clean sheets of cloth with compacted fibers for making into blankets or heavy outer garments. In Clarksburg there was a sumac mill for crushing sumac plants to extract an acid for tanning hides.

All of these mills were run by water power until the steam turbine was invented in the late 1800s. The mill had to be built near a reliable fast-running stream, creek or river. A dam would be constructed in the waterway to divert some of the water into a mill pond. A ditch called a mill race was dug from the pond to the waterwheel that was attached to the side of the mill. The mill pond had to be at least 10 feet above the mill to give the water enough force to turn the wheel, so the mill race was from 50 feet to a mile long. The opening from the mill pond to the mill race was fitted with grates to keep out debris and gates to control the force of the water. The water then entered a narrow conduit made of wood or concrete called a sluice, increasing the force of the water. The forceful stream of water coming from the sluice was directed under the water wheel for an "undershot" wheel, or over the wheel for an "overshot" wheel.

Inside the mill the shaft or axle of the turning wheel had a cog on the end of it which would turn other cogs, or gears, in diminishing sizes, thus increasing the power and directing it from horizontal to vertical to turn the huge grindstone. Thus seven turns of the mill wheel would be converted to 70 turns of the grindstone. There were actually two grindstones. The bottom one, called a bedstone, would remain stationary. The top one, or capstone, would turn. Both stones had grooves radiating out from the center called burrs. The ground flour would run out the grooves and be collected in a hopper and then funneled into bags. The larger mills would have up to four pairs of grindstones.

 Today, evidence of the multitude of water-powered mills in the 18th and 19th centuries can be found in the many roads with "Mill" at the end of their names. In Germantown, the ruins of Clopper Mill can be seen from Clopper Road across from the intersection of Waring Station Road. The ruins of Waters Mill can be seen in Black Hill Park. And Black Rock Mill (1833) on Black Rock Road has walls, but no roof and has displays describing how the water wheel and saws worked.

If you were a farmer between 1840 and 1850 in the area now Germantown, lying between Little Seneca and Seneca Creeks, you would have had a choice of five mills, depending on which was closest to your farm and what you wanted to mill. On Seneca Creek there was Black Rock Mill (1815), Clopper Mill (1775), and Watkins Mill (1783). On Little Seneca Creek there was Waters Mill (c1795) and Hoyles Mill (c1850). Middlebrook Mills on Seneca Creek near Rt. 355 had ceased operation by this time, although there was still a town near the site of the mill. 

 Over the next few weeks we will look at the history of these five mills.