Images of the Millstone Dresser
Figure 53. Millstone dresser at work. He is grooving the lands between the furrows, with his left arm resting on a sack of meal and his right hand guiding the mill pick. Above, some varieties of millstone dress. A. late Roman from fourth-century A.D. Saalburg castle. B. from Leupold's Theatrum machinarum molarium (1735). C - E, nineteenth-century dresses: C, two-furrow or "two-quarter" dress; D, "three-quarter" dress; E, straight or union dress. F and G, right-handed and left-handed stones, for clockwise and for counterclockwise rotation. Upper and lower stones of a pair are dressed identically. H, enlarged view of the relation between lands and furrows during rotation. From the "Flour for Man's Bread, A History of Milling," by John Storck, and Walter Dorwin Teaque, Minneapolis, Minn. University of Minnesota Press, 1952, page 104.
Caption: The stone dresser often steadied his forearm on a sack of meal as he worked. His hands were constantly bombarded with bits of stone and slivers of metal from the point of his pick or "mill bill." Some of these slivers became embedded under the skin, and an itinerant stone dresser looking for work could prove his experience by "showing his metal," i.e., the backs of his hands. From: "The Miller in Eighteenth-Century Virginia, An Account of Mills & the Craft of Milling, as well as a Description of the Windmill near the Palace in Williamsburg," by Thomas K. Ford,The Williamsburg Craft Series, Williamsburg, 1958, reprinted in 1966, 1988, 1990, and 1997, page 30.
Quill Stick The Master Miller adjusts the quill stick, used to text the millstone spindle for true running. If the spindle is perfectly upright, the quill should scratch evenly on the level bed stone through a full circle. From: "The Mill, At Philipsburg Manor Upper Mills and A Brief History of Milling," by Charles Howell and Allen Keller, with a Forward by Rex Wailes, Sleepy Hollow Restorations, Tarrytown, New York, 1977, page 60.
Paint Staff In the photograph above, Miller Charles Howell is shown using a paint staff, or "stone staff," to determine if the face of the stone is level. From: "The Mill, At Philipsburg Manor Upper Mills and A Brief History of Milling," by Charles Howell and Allen Keller, with a Forward by Rex Wailes, Sleepy Hollow Restorations, Tarrytown, New York, 1977, page 87.
Miller Dressing a Millstone Miller Charles Howell uses a mill bill set in a bill thrift to dress a runner stone which has been inverted using the iron tongs or bails suspended from the stone-crane. As he works, the miller reclines upon a cushion or "bist" made of a partially-filled sack of meal or bran; this helps to stready his arm as he dresses or sharpens the stone. From: "The Mill, At Philipsburg Manor Upper Mills and A Brief History of Milling," by Charles Howell and Allen Keller, with a Forward by Rex Wailes, Sleepy Hollow Restorations, Tarrytown, New York, 1977, page 84.
From: "The Story of Flour, Complied and Published for use as a Text on Wheat and Flour Production," Pillsbury Flour Mills Company, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1931, page 17.
More Images of the Millstone Dresser.
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