Conodquinet School of Mill Architecture,
Diller-Heishman's Mill, further Reflections and Information.

Conodquinet School of Mill Architecture,
Diller-Heishman's Mill,
further Reflections and Information
by
William F. Foshag
August 2001.
(Draft Copy Version)

1. The Mills are Characteristically:

• On or in the south margin or bank of the river.
• In the flatter plain of the Cumberland Valley.
• Upstream from the lower elongated entrenched meanders of the Creek.
• Downstream from the mountain water gap at the Roxbury Narrows (McAllister's Gap).
• Supported by the limestone soil cultivated wheat directly in the valley.
• Have mill foundations setting on the limestone base of the valley.
• Are built of the same field or quarried limestone.
• Have the base of the diversion dams also sitting on the stable limestone base of the valley. It is to be noted that the creek's stream bead in this part of the valley reaches clear down to the limestone shelves of gravel and small stones. As a dam foundation, this may provide stability and security against scour and undermining.
• Built with very short headrace, or none at all. In the later case, the mill overhangs the creek bank into the stream. The dam is then made integral and structural to the mill. The dam diverts a part of its flow directly into the mill and its fore bay.
• Large water wheel(s) were then arranged to capture this useful flow.
• Have large water wheel(s) which then require a large fore bay entry, and, when all put together, require the large circular Roman arch as seen. Some background and speculation now flows for an example, on the probable selection of water powered wheels and turbines for these mills.

2. Putting the Arch in the Architecture of Diller-Heishman's Mill Original Considerations:

• The follow speculations and facts are developed from historical, hydraulic, legal, technical, and production considerations.
• Consider that the Conodoquinet Creek up until about 1834 was used as a legal transportation artery serving Indians and traders, and later rafters, boaters, farmers and millers. An act of Colonial legislature passes a strong but contradictory law which makes many streams within the Susquehanna watershed public highways (includes the "Conodoquinet") for trade and commerce. The Act includes "improvements" to the stream and places great emphasis of the passage of fish up and down the stream.
• The formalizing of the creek as a highway also put severe restrictions as to the type and hydraulic characteristics of mill dams that could be built at mill sites.
• In effect under this legislation, mill dams would have to provide a sizable channel to allow downstream passage of boats and rafts as well as upstream passage of migratory fish.
• The effect was to build expensive wooden chutes which sacrifice much valuable (power) water to the creek mill or to build incomplete partial "wing" dams which would leave a considerable open water passage.
• The wing dams at the time were a form of very low height and head (about 2 or 3 feet) incomplete dams. They were so arranged to divert a useful and large amount of the stream's flow into the mill.
• It must be considered that such was probable the case for the first (circa 1805) dam at Diller's Mill.
• From a utility and production point of view, the millwright would want to maximize the stream;s water power available. Since these partial run-of-the-river dams, in this slightly descending creek, were unable to develop any appreciable head or fall, the millwright sought to capture as much flow as possible. This strongly suggest that the creek side Conodoquinet Mill used undershot water wheels. Perhaps a small amount of fall into the wheel could be developed.
• Undershot wheels are poor in efficient output and require great sizes, diameters, and axial width to develop a useful power for the mill. A fall of water is much more desirable than flow or quantity for power development.
• Thus, those mills built in this time period may well have had undershot wheels installed. They were made in elements and subassemblies and built-up within and under the large stone arches.
• Now one could make a case for the stylistic use of the large arches which were driven by the hydraulic characteristics permitted by legal, technical, transportation, and material constraints.
• The large wheels also called for large arch systems in the air currents could freely pass through the interior water works and channels. The large wheel(s) flung great quantities of water about and over the interior wooden mill structure and this ventilation was required to prevent wood-water rot and damage.
• Wooden wheels of these large sizes could not be supported or contained outside of the mill as the weight, transmission, and bearings would be directly exposed to the river elements, that is flood, trash, ice, etc.
• There are structural suggestions within the fixed walls of Diller's Mill which suggest that the wheel was a large interior unit house within the building.
• It should be noted that most other masonry mills with long head and tail races do not show this characteristic large size of arch. These other mills are located "remotely" from their stream or water source, and can be accommodate much smaller structures and equipment. The long races from upstream diversion dams deliver water to the mill at much higher fall. The higher fall, as noted, adapted to a more efficient breast or overshot wheel, requires a much smaller flow entry into the mill and onto the wheel, do not require the dramatic size of arch as found on the Conodoquinet Mills.

3. Further Considerations in the Technology of Water Power at Diller-Heishman's Mill - Speculations Facts, and Time.

• We consider that the first wheel installed in the mill was a large wooden undershot wheel. The characteristics, performance, and details of these units are well described by Evans, Craik, and in many varied entries in the Journal of the Franklin Institute. Elaborate theoretical descriptions of water wheels in the large 19th century are to be found in the English, French, and German technical literature of that time. Comprehensive historical and technical surveys of the traditional water wheels are to be found.
• Thus, without the former restrictions, the millers could build full, bank-to-ban, run-of-the-mill river dams. In this manner, they regain full hydraulic control of the water. Further, the dams now have a structural basis to be made higher. Several times higher. The potential for hydropower and product output becomes a reality.
• What they needed now was a different and new technology to match this great increase in potential.
• From old and current practice it is a well known fact that any wooden water wheels installed inside or out, have a service life of no more than 30 years. In 20 years, wooden wheels were at the end of their practical life. The wetting and drying, the rot, the shrinkage, and high loads (torque) carried throughout the wheel's structural elements take their toll.
• It may be considered then, that around the time of the law's change, the original undershot wheel in the Diller's Mill was worn out and in need of a system or technological renewal.
• Also, almost exactly at this time the vertical shaft water invention emerged. Its history evolution and development is described in too many sources to recount here.
• The vertical shaft wheels, were of a combined French and American evolution. Around 1825, then, several skilled millwrights were experimenting with wooden adaptations of the vertical axis turbines. Older Flutter, Norse and Tub Mill systems were improved upon, tested, and installed. A review of the patent art of this time shows a revolutionary development of vertical axis water wheels and machine enclosures, shrouds, scroll boxes, or volutes.
• What emerges now is of much historical interest to the Diller-Heishman Mill's power arrangement. I had the good fortune to have conversations (2001) with the late millwright, William "Bill" Beam, who took out the "last" turbines before he installed the present S. Morgan Smith Water Turbines.
• I asked him what he had taken out in 1920 (after the sale from Keiter) and he described a vertical shaft device in a large wooden "box" (the scroll-volute box) and containing a wheel of several large flat wooden paddle-like blades. Helen Keiter in her sale bill for the mill in 1913 clearly describes this as a "......32 horse power Johnson Wheel."
• The following speculation leads me to believe that this was the second wheel type to be used at the mill. An ongoing library, archival, museum, and Patent Office search, disclosed little paper that distinctly identifies a "Johnson Wheel." Keiter may have well confused the Johnson Wheel with the Thompson Wheel; another primitive but better documented system. (No, "Johnson Wheel" did exist. See "Scientific American," December 9, 1968, Ref. Morris & Company)
• Considering all the possibilities of these times, the convergence of interests, and much reflection, I feel that what was in place for many years was a system of the Center-Vent Wheel. This fits Beam's description, and has the characteristics that it can absorb and use the full hydraulic potential at this mill and dam site. It can develop substantial power at the shaft. It can be handmade, and is of nearly all wooden construction. It is of a more robust and simpler construction than of a horizontal axis water wheel. It can be made on-site by a clever country millwright; and, because of its simpler construction, say six flat radial blades, it can be maintained and refurbished over time without extensive downtime or expense.
• I t is hard to determine the number, size, performance, output, and efficiency of the possible Center-Vent vertical shaft systems installed at Diller-Heishman's Mill. The power output was probable a dramatic improvement over the undershot device. Efficiency, though much superior to the undershot, would not be too much of a concern as the unit(s) could not even come close to absorbing the water flow available from the creek.
• The success of the Center-Vent wheel at the mill is that its shaft output could now be matched to the new hydraulic characteristics of the full creek width and higher dam.
• Increased output power could translate into increased production in the mill. More production could change sales and markets which strongly relate to changes, and then to road improvement land transport.
• Another dramatic convergence was the arrival of the railroad and its freight service within only three miles away in 1838. See Cumberland Valley Railroad Service At Alterton Station 18.
• Another timely convergence was the development around this time of the timber crib dam (modified, but still in place) rather than the folk engineered structures that had previously existed. The full width dam no longer permitted the upstream migration of fish and the downstream use of raft. Cargo was now moving by improved road and railroads. Mill products markets were no longer all custom by could take on a merchant service into Baltimore or the like.
• One then presumes millwright Beam took out one or two Center-Vent wheels in 1920-1921. Again, at that time, the dam was considerably restored and improved to engineering standards of that time. (See drawings by C. A. Bryan, C. E.)
• Beam installed the two S. Morgan Smith turbines now in place. These, according to company records and data plates, were sold as reconditioned units brought over from the factory in York, Pennsylvania. For the mills site, these still may considered "modern" units as far as application and performance. Nonetheless, their exact choice is pretty much "off design" at this site......but they were all the fashion at the time of their 1920-1921 installation. A Hart-Parr (Oliver) modified farm tractor engine was fixedly installed in the engine room and could be clutched in at times of "off design" or low water.
• Other turbines about the mill site and in the York Country Museum of History and Technology are a part of a general "exhibition" collection. Some of them could be used as the "parts department" for the S. Morgan Smith units still in the turbine pit.

Web-Master's Note: The first Johnson Wheel may have been constructed by John Johnson (1771-1842). A surveyor, architect, millwright, and civil engineer of Chittenden County, Vermont. He first patented a water wheel in 1818, in Knox County, Indiana. They were constructed by Nelson Johnson of Jasper, New York. He patented his water wheel in 1837, in Erwin Centre, New York, and in 1841 in Trangle, New York. Other Johnson Wheels were constructed by A. Johnson, Nathan Johnson, Joseph H. Johnson, and John Johnson.

4. Production and Transportation to Market.

• Over the life of the mill, it operated variously as a local custom mill and as a merchant mill. The diversion of milling production was probably driven by local land national economic factors, panics, and depressions. The out-of-the-area merchant product was supported by rafting the products downstream; but, with the improvement of trails to wagon roads, the market expanded.
• It is to be noted that in Reference......Local copperage records shows that Diller was buying 30 flour barrels a day. The barrels were for merchant (milling) trade. Further, this number of barrels strongly suggests the daily milling capacity of the mill.

Web-Master's Note: Using 30 barrels per day to measure the mill's output. Each barrel contained 196 pounds of flour. The mill could grind basically 9 thousand pounds of wheat per day, and of that 6 thousand pounds went in to the barrels. The rest being termed "offals" consisting of middlings and bran. If the mill had three pairs of millstones and one pair was down for millstone dressing, the remaining three pairs would have no problem grind this amount of grain in a normal water power day. The Napoleonic Wars elevated the price of a barrel of flour from 4 dollars to a high of 11 dollars. Do the math!

• The first merchant market of the mill's flour probably went to Baltimore buyers, brokers (exporters), and bakers. Wheat and flour trade into the Baltimore wheat shed is well described in several interesting sources.
• To tap into this market, wagon transportation was the key. Concurrent with the early operation of Diller's Mill, the road from Carlisle to Hanover was incorporated into a Turnpike Company in 1809, Cumberland County road viewers, viewed and opened a road directly from this mill to intercept this turnpike in 18--. It was of interest that Francis Diller had been the West Pennsboro Township Road Supervisor in this period 18--. The character of the Turnpike from Hanover, south into Baltimore is well described.
• A remarkable and major transportation project was studied in the Conodoquinet watershed in 1826. The commercial success of New York's Erie Canal (1825) called forth the frenzy of canal surveying and construction within the State of Pennsylvania. A former State Canal Commission sent engineering surveyors over the state to determine the feasibility of canal interconnections between major river systems, cities, commercial centers, and road systems.
• John Mitchell, a civil engineer, surveyer and determined water sources and courses for a great Susquehanna and Potomac Canal which would follow and use waters from Conodoquinet and Conococheague Creek in Harrisburg, and connect with the Potomac River and C & O Canal at Williamsport, Maryland. Though the technical and hydraulic feasibility, the marginality and economics of such a canal was probably not worth following up. This study is well described in both newspapers of the day.
• Mitchell's colorful and large survey map still exists, and clearly identifies "Diller's Mill" along the route of the proposed canal. One can only imagine the wealth and merchant service this would have brought to the Conodoquinet mills had this canal been built. There remains an interesting hydraulic question as to how much of the mill's water power, and hence, production would have to be sacrificed to the operation of such a canal.
• The arrival in 1838 of the new Cumberland Valley Railroad to a depot at nearby (three miles south) Alterton (Kerrsville), certainly must have affected production and marking of flour and wheat to the east. At first, the C.V.R.R. ran only eastward to Carlisle and Harrisburg, with direct links to Philadelphia. The rivalry between the commercial and exporting centers of Philadelphia and Baltimore from the breadbasket was complex and competitive. It is to be considered, however, that merchant products in the Conodoquinet mills still traveled into Baltimore because of the shorter distance. Later increasing railroad interconnections may well have changed this.
• Prior to the actual arrival of the C.V.R.R., is chief engineer, besides making the requested engineering surveys, additional made economic projections to estimate the rail traffic's earning power. His survey of the broad range of mills in the valley (Cumberland and Franklin Counties) listed an amazing:

5. The Civil War at the Mill: A Diversion and Speculation.

• Just before the Battle of Gettysburg the southern armies were moving up the valley from Newville to Carlisle along the C.V.R.R. In June and July, newspaper accounts report the rebel host camped between the Greason and Alterton stations........about three miles south of the mill. Certainly commissary troops and forgers would have been put out to the creek and to the mills to obtain flour, corn, and feed. One would be curious to know what happened between the miller and the troops on these occasions. On arriving at Carlisle on June 28, 1863, the southern quartermaster chief requisitioned 1,500 barrels of flour from the town. When the rebels were in town, they also "kept a female spy at the Mansion House. She was a pretty, but impudent piece of rebel calico."

6. Final Operation of the Mill - A Combined Milling Business by Neuhauser and Wright.

Jesse B. Neuhauser and Morgan C. Wright rented the Barnitz Mill on July 1, 1946. They ran this mill well, and in ----, ----, when they bought the Heishman Mill from that family and began the combined operation of the two mills, milling engineering drawings and account books suggest that the Barnitz Mill was the dominant operation of the two.

• Recently, the Day Books (accounts of the mill under Neuhauser and Wright have come to light. There are seven volumes covering the complete years from 1946 to 1957 when the business closed.
• Previous descriptions of the mill operation under this final operating ownership showing a marginal business in decline is no longer true. The accounts describe an active merchant business. Initially Neuhauser and Wright began by loosing the Barnitz Mill on July 1, 1946. This mill is about 12 miles south of Heishman's location.
• The engineering and flow diagrams by the Wolf Company of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania are in hand, and are very instructive. Barnitz Mill, on the Yellow Britches Creek in Dickinson Townships, was powered by three water turbines of mixed capacities. Examination of these records show that the Barnitz operation was very productive as the milling machinery was more modern and well installed.
• Both mills were now producing in tandem, and it is difficult to determine which, produced what and how much. While Neuhauser and Wright owned Heishman's Mill, they rented the Barnitz for one hundred dollars a month from Mrs. H. W. Barnitz.
• What is striking is the merchant milling service of this combined output. The times after World War II were good for the central Pennsylvania area. A considerable amount of these mills' output went routinely (on contract?) to businesses as far away as Scranton, Pennsylvania. Much of the flour products were delivered to West Shore commercial operations such as bakeries, hotels, grocery market chains, general stores, and County Home, and the Carlisle Hospital, etc.
• The accounts show that the last year for full wheat-to-flour production was 1956, and by April 1957 wheat purchase was at an end. The accounts show that the final combined operation of Heishman's and Barnitz Mills made their last sale in the week of September 1957.
• The combined mill operation furnished the market with a general favorite "Ladies Choice" winter wheat flour available in stores in 2, 5, 10, 25, and 100 pound bags. They also furnished several other brands of flour to the market; one a special "Sifted Snow" pastry flour to the bakeries and stores. Meal was made available in two and five pound bags. "Mixed Grains for Poultry," a feed in 50 pound bags was also produced.
• An examination of the seven current day books (1946 - 1957) by a professional, familiar with mill service, product and accounting, would reveal far into the last part of the economic life of the Heishman's Mill. It is to be hoped that earlier accounts of the mill can be found.

7. Some Corrections and Afterthoughts.

• Ellen Keiter's newspaper sale notice in 1915 specifically describes the mill as a roller mill, and one must presume that several of the Wolf Roller Mills were in place at that time. William Bean, however, also noted to me that the burr stones were also in place and that he took them out at that time of the Heishman purchase and revival.
• What is not noted in the Keiter's sale bill was that the "original" timber crib dam had a major breach in its center.......as noted in the archival records of P.A.D.E.P.
• Many areas of research and record are incomplete today. Many sources of information are still to be discovered and examined. I am still trying to locate the son of "Bill" Bean as he has information and is also a modern commercial miller.

8. Future Examination Specific to this Mill and Historical Mills in General.

• It would be interesting to apply modern system engineering to an historical context such as Diller-Heishman's Mill. This is clearly beyond the scope for this discussion or my talents but it is a discipline that could be brought to bear, especially in the broad field of industrial archaeology. As the field of industrial Archaeology matures, its examinations trend this way, and are becoming more complex and academic.
• Of great practical and historical interest is the intermixing of complex natural, economic, geological, and technical systems as they relate to historical water power and milling development. Discussion, notes and references by Gordon are major contributions to this approach. The references cited in these works will provide a source of great resource for examining this field of historical systems application.

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