This is where we concluded our day – after Conowingo Dam and the Italian lunch.

We were in Hartford County – Jarrettsville, Maryland.

We arrived here about 3:00 pm, so only toured the gristmill. There were several other buildings.

This mill was built by John Stump III about 1800. There are four stories.

Mr. Stump was a prosperous businessman and owned several mills and plots of land in Harford, Cecil, and Baltimore Counties in Maryland.

Following his death in 1816, the mill passed into the Archer family by way of Stump’s daughter Ann, who married Dr. John Archer, Jr.

John Macklem acquired the mill from the Archer family in 1904.

Then in 1929 the mill passed to Wiford Wilinson, who operated the mill until his death in 1954. The Maryland Department of Forest and Parks purchased the mill six years later. In 1965 the mill’s corn-grinding operation was partially restored for public demonstrations.

The springhouse was built between 1801 and 1804. It’s main purpose was to provide drinking water for the Rock Run Manson (which we did not visit).

Directly below the springhouse is a stone engraved with “In Memory of Joshua Cowgill Smith 1857-1911. I did not find out who he was.

After touring the gristmill, I finally learned how these millstones were used.

Let’s enter the mill.

I found this sign interesting.

I later came upon this sign.

The mill was gutted and rebuilt to its present configuration about 1900.

In its heyday it was a merchant mill and ground wheat into flour for the local and international market.

Much of its flour was sold to the Caribbean.

This was one thing I recognized – the platform scales. We used to have one of these when I grew up on the farm – for weighing grain and other farm products.

This Miller’s Office was on the second floor.

This is where local residents bought, sold, and bartered goods.

The local post office was next to the miller’s office.

Interesting

I liked the deep windows.

There are 34 windows – which provided most of the mill’s interior lighting. Because flour dust is combustible, the mill usually only ran during daylight hours.

The state-of-the-art (at the time) Fitz Waterwheel was installed in 1900. It weights 12 tons.

There are 84 buckets – that when filled rotate the wheel.

The rotating wheel turns a series of gears, belts, and pulleys to turn the millstone inside the mill.

The turning millstone grinds the corn into corn meal.

The first time I saw this, the grain “funnel-like bin” was almost empty.

When I came back a short time later, it had been refilled.

The results of the grinding was being transferred into a moving “sifter” on the floor below.

The fine grain fell into this bin.

The rest moved on to the next – not-as-fine sifter and fell into the next bin.

Corn – ground corn – finely ground corn.

It is put in bags – and I expect sold to someone for use in making corn meal products or for feeding chickens.

There were other pieces of machinery on display.

We used to have similar grain bins in the barn on the family homestead. They are probably still there.

This went from one end of the building to the other. Probably something to do with the stability of the mill.

Deb and I finished the tour before Cerwin and Roy, and checked out the path between the mill and the Susquehanna River. After awhile we began to wonder what happened to the guys. We concluded that they were trying to figure out how each piece of equipment worked. 🙂

Finally they showed up! 🙂

The area is lush and green.

I walked into an area of the path – opposite of Deb – to explore, and returned to find her testing the light on her Dad. Hoping that I would eventually show up for a picture of the two of us.

Notice the bit of orange at the bottom tip of Deb’s camera? That is Roy hiding from my camera shot.

Now you can see him. 🙂

I thought we were still laughing at Roy, but Deb reminded me that we were laughing because she just asked about my camera – for taking this picture – which she was holding. 🙂

Some of the beauty as we walked along the path.

Shortly after getting into the Jeep, we came upon this furnace. Because of its proximity to the mill, I expect it had something to do with the Rock Run Historic Area.

We were soon back in Roy and Deb’s home territory, and after hugs and exchanging goodbye’s, we headed for home.

~~~

It was a relaxing, fun, delightful day. Thank you Roy and Deb.