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History > Where History Happened > Early MIlls

EARLY MILLS
Muncaster Mill | Bond Bones Mill | Chandlee's Mill
Seventeen local water mills ground grain, sawed lumber, pressed oil seeds, and fulled or pressed wool and cotton into felt--some well into the 20th century. Most mills turned along the Patuxent River and the Hawlings and its tributaries; several harnessed Rock Creek and the Northwest Branch. Four gave their names to roads: Bowie, Muncaster, Chandlee, and Haviland. Today the mills have vanished except for traces of the old ponds and races, a scattering of millers' houses perched nearby, and a few ponderous millstones mellowing in gardens and walkways.
The Brookeville Woolen Mill stands downslope from the miller's house on the Hawlings. A fulling mill, it pressed coarse fabrics for "servant's clothing"--laborers' winter wear--as well as for heavy blankets. The stone house, early residence of millers Newlin and Farquhar, today is the home of Woody and Kathy Young.	Brooke Grove grist mill added steam power in 1877 to ensure reliability during drought or flood. One of its millstones--the lower or nether stone--adorns a walkway at the Sandy Spring Museum.
Muncaster's Mill
	Muncaster's Mill on the North Branch of Rock Creek ground grain and sawed lumber. Its overshot wheel, 15 feet in diameter, turned three "runs" of stones for the fine grinding of flour. The large saw mill stands at left. The presence of mills in a community bespoke its prosperity: too bountiful a grain crop to be hand-ground at home. Typical of neighborhood mills, Muncaster's operated for approximately a century before closing down in the mid-1920s. Bowie's Mill, upstream on Flint Hill Farm, also was a grist and saw mill.
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Bond Bone Mill
	Ramparts of the Bond Bone Mill crumble near Ednor, probably around 1900. Established by William S. Bond about 1840, the mill made fertilizer from bones of local livestock and buffalo bones railed to Laurel from the Great Plains. An 1882 passer-by commented that "the pungent and not altogether agreeable odor of old bones was perceptible for a long distance..." Another bone mill operated on Gregg Road.
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Chandlee's Mill
	Grist for a photographer's mill, young ladies of Camp Dismal cavort on Chandlee's mill on the Hawlings River. Mahlon Chandlee's mill sawed the beams and stay-awake benches of the 1817 Meeting House--furnishings still in use today.
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