In the Old Grist Mill
Stereo View Card (P-179 P-26379)

Were you ever in a country grist mill? Here is a miller and his mill. The farmer drives up and unloads bags of corn, wheat, oats and buckwheat for the miller to grind into meal. The miller takes the hand truck and wheels the grain to the hoppers. Do you see that little board in one corner of the hopper? With it the miller can make the hopper feed the kernels of grain so that the meal will be coarser or fine. In the picture you cannot see the millstone nor the long belts with little cups on them to carry the meal into the bins.

There is a bin in the back of the picture. The miller hangs a bag under the bin, pulls out a little board (gate) and the ground meal drops into the bag. When all of the farmer's grain is ground he comes and gets it. He pays the miller for grinding the meal or gives the miller some of the meal. That is how the miller gets meal to sell to people who do not raise their own grain.

The Keystone View Company, Meadville, Pennsylvania, New York, New York, Chicago, Illinois, and London, England.

Theodore R. Hazen, a professional mill restorer. Ted Hazen's web site is on mill technology and history. It is presented from the interpretation view point of a National Park Service Ranger. "It is honest, and the most researched information clearly presented to the public," as I presented when I worked for the National Park Service.  

The efficient miller is Ted Hazen, a man whose main interest is the preservation of old mills. After analyzing thousands of pertinent historical documents, Theodore Hazen and others such as the late Charles Howell have written a series of monographs that synthesize the important social features of a typical eighteenth-century mill.

Theodore R. Hazen, one of the foremost authorities on mills in the United States. His web site basically summarizes: At one time, almost everyone had to make a trip to the mill. You met your neighbors there and maybe fell in love. Not with the mill or the miller but with someone’s daughter who happened to go to the mill with her father. “Down by the old mill stream that is where I first met you...”

This website was created by Theodore R. Hazen. Mr. Hazen, a longtime collector of information and items related to old mills, is a nationally recognized authority on the history and all technical aspects of flour milling in early America. The website is indexed and is an extensive compilation of monographs written by Mr. Hazen and others on historic mills.

Source Material: The World Wide Web.