Johnston County NcArchives Biographies.....Nicholas Rose Grist Mill  
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/nc/ncfiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Guy Potts http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00017.html#0004214 July 8, 2023, 4:23 pm

Author: H. V. Rose

H. V. Rose's Memories of Another Era
People No Longer Know Anything About Fun of Going to the Grist Mill
From H. V. Rose papers at Heritage Center, Smithfield, NC

The old water-powered grist mill, once so numerous in this county (Johnston), 
has almost faded from the landscape. Fifty years ago my father, W. N. Rose Jr., 
owned and operated such a mill. Within a radius of five miles from his mill were 
at least five others - all active at their work of turning out their daily grind 
of corn meal and hominy. Now only one of these mills is standing and capable of 
grinding corn; that is the old Dick Blackman pond near Bentonville, presently 
owned by Dee Shaw. I do not think it is in use for grinding; although kept in 
good condition for the business. All the others have succumbed to slow decay and 
have gone down stream in some fatal flood.

My father's old mill fell a victim of the carelessness of night fishermen during 
the World War I. They built a fire and left embers glowing and smoldering. The 
wind grew strong and swept live coals under the century old house and it came 
down in flames never again to rise and grind. The fervent heat caused both the 
upper and nether stones to fly into millions of small pebbles.

I used to grind at this old mill, and while it did not give me a college degree, 
it did impart into me much knowledge of things and people which I have found as 
some of life's best assets. For one thing, being a public miller acquaints one 
with a wide circle of friends. A miller learns a great deal about how his 
neighbors live and it was in those days a great deal to know about the type of 
corn each farmer grew and how persistently each one would stick to his variety. 

John Weaver had a chalky white corn, the grains of which were long and soft. Our 
old mill could make pure flour from his corn. Old Mr. John B. Hood's corn was 
round of grain, and as hard as flint. We had to set the stones close, feed them 
slowly and grind and grind to get the yield of fine meal he always wanted. Uncle 
Bright Cole had yellow corn. In those days the yellow variety was very rare. His 
meal when cooked looked like highly seasoned muffins and was indeed very 
palatable.

Some of our customers wanted a fine grind while others wanted a kind of round 
coarse grind. One jester came along one day and said please grind his in round 
meal of cylinder shape. It was amusing to hear those old tillers of the field 
laud their wives - what fine cooks they were and what a good bread they could 
cook from the meal from that old mill. Fine meal went into hoecakes and the 
coarse meal was ideal for the corn pone. How tasty and delicious was this bread, 
they said, when eaten with cold buttermilk and summer vegetables.

A millpond on a farm has many fascinating features. There are many little 
requirements of a water mill, and to call over a list of all the gadgets at this 
late date, one would need a glossary for an understanding of the use and purpose 
of each. Who would know the meaning of such terms as toll-dish, mill-peck, 
hopper, shoe, meal paddle, ink-and-grudgen (this word is not in Webster's), 
trunk, gate, flood-gates, pier-head, chinking the gate, shrouding, sheeting, 
blade, bed, shaft, etc?

Our mill house was never locked and if ever a grain of corn was stolen from it I 
do not remember it. But the use of the mill and the water in the pond were 
sometimes stolen. There were some men not far away who were engaged in the 
manufacture of blockade liquor. That was before men knew how to make liquor by 
sugaring up red-dog. In those days they would make malt out of sprouted corn and 
dry it in the sun. When thoroughly dry they would go to the old mill by night 
and grind the malt into fine flour. From this they could brew a beer that would 
turn out a pure corn whisky that would rival Scotland's best. At least those who 
drank it gave it high praise and continue to do so until this day. The next 
measure of corn ground after a malt made mean bread. The sour malt could ruin a 
lot of sweet meal.

Another problem was the fellow who wanted meal early in the fall from his new 
crop of corn. The new crop had to be bone dry, else the meal would fall from the 
rocks in rolls resembling shoestrings. This would choke the rocks and 
considerable work was required to reset the runner and upper stone after such a 
grind.  

Those old mills also ground out hominy. This was a coarse grind of corn not much 
finer than biddie feed. But when cooked long and slowly and topped off by ham 
gravy, you had a dish fit for the king.

The pond in summer would attract boys from miles away. There they would gather 
on Sunday afternoons in great gangs and while the afternoon way in swimming and 
diving. In cold weather ice on the pond was another attraction. Flocks of wild 
ducks would visit the pond but one had to be a very skillful hunter if ever he 
got a shot at them. I used to shoot them by approaching the pond from below the 
dam. I would ease the gun just above the crest of the dam and when duckey got 
within range the old gun would blaze forth. In season there were a lot of fish - 
cats, mullets, perch. Fish was the old mill's undoing.

There was little profit in the operation of a public grist mill. The law then - 
and now so far as I am informed - allowed the miller to take one-eighth of the 
grist for toll. From one bushel he would take one-half of a peck. That was 
making corn very slowly but we always had corn if the rains were frequent enough 
to keep the old water-wheel turning.

My father's mill was built by an ancestor, Nicholas Rose, early in the Eighteen 
Hundreds - on the side of the hopper the date 1831 was very plainly carved. 
Sherman's "bummers" visited the mill in 1865 and found Uncle John Wright Rose in 
charge. They leveled their muskets as he ran away and they fired a few random 
shots which slapped the pines above his head, and then they ground corn until 
the water ran out and the stone would no longer turn. [Note: John Wright Rose 
would have been 16 years old in 1865 and later settled with his family in 
western Wayne County in the Rhodes Friends Meeting area of Grantham]

I stood on the old dam a few days ago and looked toward what used to be the head 
of the pond. There is no water there now except the small branch that used to 
fill the pond. In the place of water a vast tangle of briars and small growing 
trees have taken possession. There is a gaping hole in the dam where the old 
house stood, and there remains anywhere about hardly a vestige of this once busy 
neighborhood mill. All this little matters now, for people no longer call for 
water ground meal - they no long know about the fun of going to the mill.


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/nc/johnston/bios/rose65nbs.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/ncfiles/

File size: 7.3 Kb