The Techniques Employed in Mill Restoration.
(1) PRESERVATION: Focuses on the maintenance and repair of existing historic materials and retention of a property's form as it has evolved over time. PRESERVATION IS DEFINED as the act or process of applying measures necessary to sustain the existing form, integrity, and materials of an historic property. Work, including preliminary measures to protect and stabilize the property, generally focuses upon the ongoing maintenance and repair of historic materials and features rather than extensive replacement and new construction. New exterior additions are not within the scope of this treatment; however, the limited and sensitive upgrading of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems and other code-required work to make properties functional is appropriate within a preservation project. 1. A property will be used as it was historically, or be given a new use that maximizes the retention of distinctive materials, features, spaces, and spatial relationships. Where a treatment and use have not been identified, a property will be protected and, if necessary, stabilized until additional work may be undertaken. 2. The historic character of a property will be retained and preserved. The replacement of intact or repairable historic materials or alteration of features, spaces, and spatial relationships that characterize a property will be avoided. 3. Each property will be recognized as a physical record of its time, place, and use. Work needed to stabilize, consolidate, and conserve existing historic materials and features will be physically and visually compatible, identifiable upon close inspection, and properly documented for future research. 4. Changes to a property that have acquired historic significance in their own right will be retained and preserved. 5. Distinctive materials, features, finishes, and construction techniques or examples of craftsmanship that characterize a property will be preserved. 6. The existing condition of historic features will be evaluated to determine the appropriate level of intervention needed. Where the severity of deterioration requires repair or limited replacement of a distinctive feature, the new material will match the old in composition, design, color, and texture. 7. Chemical or physical treatments, if appropriate, will be undertaken using the gentlest means possible. Treatments that cause damage to historic materials will not be used. 8. Archeological resources will be protected and preserved in place. If such resources must be disturbed, mitigation measures will beundertaken. PRESERVATION AS A TREATMENT. When the property's distinctive materials, features, and spaces are essentially intact and thus convey the historic significance without extensive repair or replacement; when depiction at a particular period of time is not appropriate; and when a continuing or new use does not require additions or extensive alterations, Preservation may be considered as a treatment. Example of a mill preservation is the Mabry Mill, Blue Ridge Parkway, Milepost 176, Meadows of Dan, Virginia. (2) REHABILATION: Acknowledges the need to alter or add to a historic property to meet continuing or changing uses while retaining the property's historic character. REHABILITATION IS DEFINED AS the act or process of making possible a compatible use for a property through repair, alterations, and additions while preserving those portions or features which convey its historical, cultural, or architectural values. 1. A property will be used as it was historically or be given a new use that requires minimal change to its distinctive materials, features, spaces, and spatial relationships. 2. The historic character of a property will be retained and preserved. The removal of distinctive materials or alteration of features, spaces, and spatial relationships that characterize a property will be avoided. 3. Each property will be recognized as a physical record of its time, place, and use. Changes that create a false sense of historical development, such as adding conjectural features or elements from other historic properties, will not be undertaken. 4. Changes to a property that have acquired historic significance in their own right will be retained and preserved. 5. Distinctive materials, features, finishes, and construction techniques or examples of craftsmanship that characterize a property will be preserved. 6. Deteriorated historic features will be repaired rather than replaced. Where the severity of deterioration requires replacement of a distinctive feature, the new feature will match the old in design, color, texture, and, where possible, materials. Replacement of missing features will be substantiated by documentary and physical evidence. 7. Chemical or physical treatments, if appropriate, will be undertaken using the gentlest means possible. Treatments that cause damage to historic materials will not be used. 8. Archeological resources will be protected and preserved in place. If such resources must be disturbed, mitigation measures will be undertaken. 9. New additions, exterior alterations, or related new construction will not destroy historic materials, features, and spatial relationships that characterize the property. The new work will be differentiated from the old and will be compatible with the historic materials, features, size, scale and proportion, and massing to protect the integrity of the property and its environment. 10. New additions and adjacent or related new construction will be undertaken in a such a manner that, if removed in the future, the essential form and integrity of the historic property and its environment would be unimpaired. REHABILITATION AS A TREATMENT. When repair and replacement of deteriorated features are necessary; when alterations or additions to the property are planned for a new or continued use; and when its depiction at a particular period of time is not appropriate, Rehabilitation may be considered as a treatment. An example of a mill rehabilitation is the Luckenbach Flour Mill, Historic Bethlehem, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. (3) RESTORATION: Depicts a property at a particular period of time in its history, while removing evidence of other periods. RESTORATION IS DEFINED AS the act or process of accurately depicting the form, features, and character of a property as it appeared at a particular period of time by means of the removal of features from other periods in its history and reconstruction of missing features from the restoration period. The limited and sensitive upgrading of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems and other code-required work to make properties functional is appropriate within a restoration project. 1. A property will be used as it was historically or be given a new use which reflects the property's restoration period. 2. Materials and features from the restoration period will be retained and preserved. The removal of materials or alteration of features, spaces, and spatial relationships that characterize the period will not be undertaken. 3. Each property will be recognized as a physical record of its time, place, and use. Work needed to stabilize, consolidate and conserve materials and features from the restoration period will be physically and visually compatible, identifiable upon close inspection, and properly documented for future research. 4. Materials, features, spaces, and finishes that characterize other historical periods will be documented prior to their alteration or removal. 5. Distinctive materials, features, finishes, and construction techniques or examples of craftsmanship that characterize the restoration period will be preserved. 6. Deteriorated features from the restoration period will be repaired rather than replaced. Where the severity of deterioration requires replacement of a distinctive feature, the new feature will match the old in design, color, texture, and, where possible, materials. 7. Replacement of missing features from the restoration period will be substantiated by documentary and physical evidence. A false sense of history will not be created by adding conjectural features, features from other properties, or by combining features that never existed together historically. 8. chemical or physical treatments, if appropriate, will be undertaken using the gentlest means possible. Treatments that cause damage to historic materials will not be used. 9. Archeological resources affected by a project will be protected and preserved in place. If such resources must be disturbed, mitigation measures will be undertaken. 10. Designs that were never executed historically will not be constructed. RESTORATION AS A TREATMENT. When the property's design, architectural, or historical significance during a particular period of time outweighs the potential loss of extant materials, features, spaces, and finishes that characterize other historical periods; when there is substantial physical and documentary evidence for the work; and when contemporary alterations and additions are not planned, Restoration may be considered as a treatment. Prior to undertaking work, a particular period of time, i.e., the restoration period, should be selected and justified, and a documentation plan for Restoration developed. An example of a mill restoration is Peirce Mill, Rock Creek Park, Washington, D.C. (4) RECONSTRUCTION: Re-creates vanished or non-surviving portions of a property for interpretive purposes. RECONSTRUCTION IS DEFINED AS the act or process of depicting, by means of new construction, the form, features, and detailing of a non-surviving site, landscape, building, structure, or object for the purpose of replicating its appearance at a specific period of time and in its historic location. 1. Reconstruction will be used to depict vanished or non-surviving portions of a property when documentary and physical evidence is available to permit accurate reconstruction with minimal conjecture, and such reconstruction is essential to the public understanding of the property. 2. Reconstruction of a landscape, building, structure, or object in its historic location will be preceded by a thorough archeological investigation to identify and evaluate those features and artifacts which are essential to an accurate reconstruction. If such resources must be disturbed, mitigation measures will be undertaken. 3. Reconstruction will include measures to preserve any remaining historic materials, features, and spatial relationships. 4. Reconstruction will be based on the accurate duplication of historic features and elements substantiated by documentary or physical evidence rather than on conjectural designs or the availability of different features from other historic properties. A reconstructed property will re-create the appearance of the non-surviving historic property in materials, design, color, and texture. 5. A reconstruction will be clearly identified as a contemporary re-creation. 6. Designs that were never executed historically will not be constructed. RECONTRUCTION AS A TREATMENT. When a contemporary depiction is required to understand and interpret a property's historic value (including the re-creation of missing components in a historic district or site); when no other property with the same associative value has survived; and when sufficient historical documentation exists to ensure an accurate reproduction, Reconstruction may be considered as a treatment. An example of a mill recontruction is the Upper Mills at Philipsburg Manor, Sleepy Hollow, New York, and the Lee Mill, Stratford Hall, Montross, Virginia.
(1) Two Photographs of the Roxbury Mill, and the Problems of Water Damage in Historical Structures. This proves there is no such thing as a small hole in a roof! The village of Roxbury Mills, is located on the Cattail River just off State Route 97, in Howard County, Maryland, just across the boundary from Montgomery County. The Roxbury Mill is not a success story. It illustrates what can happen when rain water gets into a small hole in the roof and if not repaired, can grow in time to spread downward in an ever growing larger area create a cancer that eats away at the fabric of the whole structure. It also illustrates what happens when there is not the interest or the money to restore a local treasure that is not lost for all time. The Roxbury Mill was one of the countries most important and historic mills. Captain Philemon Dorsey built the first mill there in 1753. Roxbury Mill operated continuously from then until 1962 as a succession of updated milling operations were built on the site. It is believed to have been the last operating water powered mill in Howard County.
One of the special interest occurred in the early 19th century when the milling innovations of Oliver Evans were incorporated. Oliver Evans was the "James Watt" of 18th and 19th century milling; his techniques and machinery were used in all "merchant" mills, such as Ellicott Mills, and simplified versions were found in many smaller grist mills. Mr. Samuel Thomas, the mill owner at the time of the change, did not pay Mr. Evans for the use of his patented system.
Evans sued Thomas for $800 damages. Mr. Thomas' son-in-law, Isaac Knight, finally settled the case in 1822 for $400. The license given by Evans granted use of "my Patented Machine and Patented Improvements in the art of manufacturing flour or meal, as follow, viz. For elevating grain and meal and conveying the same from one part of the mill to another, and for cooling the meal and attending the bolting p; hoppers; for the use of [Isaac Knight's] Mill consisting of one water wheel, driving not more than one pain of millstones at the same time, situate on Cattail Branch, called Rocks Bury Mill" (2) Two Photographs, one of The Bethlehem Mill and the other of the Luckenbach Mill. A grist mill was built in 1743, and it first grist ground June 28th. In 1743, the Moravians in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, built their first grist mill to grind grain into flour. The mill was rebuilt, and the second mill, built in 1751, included a fulling mill to process wool cloth. In 1759, a dye shop and cloth weavers' shop were added. The first Bethlehem mill was built up of hewn timbers, as a saw-mill was not erected in the settlement until in the early summer of 1744, upon a substructure of masonry. Furthermore it was equipped with but a single run of stones, cut in May's quarry on the Neshaminy, being, in fact of humble capacity. The Bethlehem Mill, both grist and fulling mill, the latter having been discontinued in 1817.
These were the three millers responsible during the time of the so-called Bethlehem Economy. It remains to be stated that in 1760 already, the mill began to assume the character of a merchant-mill, in as far as flour was made for the Philadelphia and New York markets; and in order to preserve the good name of the Moravians for fair dealing intact, an Inspector of Flour was appointed to see that all wares produced and shipped were as represented. The second Bethlehem mill was built entirely of stone, a second run of stones was added, and finally an elevator and sundial completed the equipments of this well-appointed piece of the mill-wright's handiwork. The only piece of flour milling at the time that could be described as a sundial is Oliver Evans' hopper-boy.
The D. & A. Luckenbach Flour Mill appears with a photo of the second Bethlehem Mill, that burned and was rebuilt in 1869. In 1877, steam power was added to the Luckenbach Mill. Milling ended here in 1949. The mill was used to mill flour and later feed. During the 1950's, the building was used an an auto repair garage. The area around it became an auto junkyard. The area was cleared in the 1960's, and the Luckenbach Mill was restored in 1982 as a multi-use structure. (A) In one first hand account about the dusty millers of the Bethlehem Mill it mentions the "mysterious sun-dial overhead." Generally in the architecture of old mills, they usually don't have a structure or piece of machinery that could be described as a sun-dial. On an outbuilding at the Union Mills complex outside of Westminster, Maryland, on the side of a building is a metal bent rod and a sundial painted on the building. I don't recall the history of this feature, but describing it as over head, at least to me, I would interpret overhead as being on an upper floor level of the mill. One of the drawings found in "The Young Mill-Wright and Miller's Guide," by Oliver Evans, shows the hopper-boy. The arms is shown on an angle that would indicate that the device rotates, and one end of the (that is higher) arm would indicate that it is the leading arm in its rotation, and the other end (that is lower) would indicate that it is the trailing arm. It is this drawings that is used in the "Pond Lily Mill Restorations" logo, and could be interpreted as a sun dial. (B) While the Luckenbach Flour Mill is a beautiful example of a Victorian flour mill, it does not have the molinological interest as the previous Bethlehem Mill. The restoration agreement stated that the mill would be restored only as a multi-use structure. To restore this structure as an operating flour mill or as a representation of a flour mill as a static exhibit would have cost a great deal of money, and large amount of machinery. One solution would have been to restore the mill with examples of the machinery on each floor and then tie them into exhibits and hands on activities. (C) The molinologist dream would have been to knock down the later Luckenbach Flour Mill, and reconstruct the previous the Bethlehem Mill. This mill is more interesting from a molinological standpoint. The ideal would to have both buildings side by side so visitors can time travel from one building to the other, being able to observe the changes on technology. Each individual would perhaps have their own preference as to which they would like to walk through the door of, either Luckenbach Flour Mill or the previous the Bethlehem Mill. I don't know of a surviving, restored, or reconstructed mill that would rival the Bethlehem Mill as a lost molinological treasure.
Bibliography: Bullock, Orin M. Jr., "The Restoration Manual," Norwalk, Conn., Silvermine Publishers, 1966. Burns, John A., editor, "Recording Historic Structures," Washington, D.C., The A.I.A. Press, 1989. Howard, Hugh, "How Old Is This House?" New York, Noonday Press, 1989. Howe, Barbara J., Dolores A. Fleming, Emory L. Kemp, and Ruth Ann Overbeck, "Houses and Homes: Exploring Their History," Nashville, Tennessee, American Association for State and Local History, 1987. Judd, Henry A., "Before Restoration Begins," Nashville, Tennessee, American Association for State and Local History, 1973. Kitchen, Judith L., "Caring For Your Old House," Washington, D.C., The Preservation Press, 1991. Seale, William, "Recreating the Historic House Interior," Nashville, Tennesse, American Association for State and Local History, 1979. Secretary of the Interior's "Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties," Washington, D.C., Preservation Assistance Division, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1992. Secretary of the Interior's "Standards and Guidelines for Architectural and Engineering Documentation," HABS/HAER Standards. Washington, D.C., HABS/HAER, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1990.
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