The hole in the ground.. or, "How a 200 year old gristmill was re-discovered"
I always wanted to be an archaeologist.
Not for a living, but definitely for the joy of discovery, and putting the pieces of the puzzle together to make a complete story.
As a boy, the thrill I got finding arrowheads and stone tools in our family garden kept me weeding and tilling for hours!
At my grandparents house, in the Shenandoah Valley there was history EVERYWHERE!
- the collection of Minnie balls;
- the unexploded Parrott shell my grandfather found in a fencepost hole;
(yes, we played with it... ignorance is bliss!)
- my great grandfathers hand tools;
- the horse drawn sled in the barn;
- my great grandfathers Colt revolver- rusted beyond use - left from the Civil War; and,
- above all, the stories, the letters, the memories, the legends (to us)
So, it surprised me when after 30 years of looking at a hole in the ground, I finally figured out the story behind it.
About a quarter of a mile from here, across a ridge and down beside a stream is a hole in the ground. Not just any hole in the ground, but a hole with a stone lay-up back wall and a large area of erosion in front of it. Since it lies in what was, in the 50s and 60s, a public picnic area, (long since closed) I had assumed it was the remains of a utility building or a privy... And that was that. I gave no more thought to it.
Then March 2020 happened. COVID19 caused folks to be sequestered..
In the interest of maintaining the fitness level required for being a guide and first responder, my training regimen was going to have to be what I had at hand. Since I live on a mountain, and back up to miles and miles of mountain trails.. I scored! I loaded up a pack with a full climbing loadout... 2 ropes, PPE, rack, first aid gear, water... a lot of weight... and set out to do 5-10 mile conditioning hikes at least every other day.
Well, the "approach hike" to the main body of trails goes right past that hole in the ground.
One day I decided that since I had nothing but time, I'd make some observations and see what I could figure out... there had to be more to the story.
-The hole was located at the base of a ridge, just a few feet in elevation above the stream that has carved out the "hollow" between two mountain ridges.
-About 20 feet above the hole was a flat trail or an old road that ran very level along the bottom of the ridge.. ending about 30 feet short of the hole.
-about 150 yards upstream, along this flat "road", was an old, stone, water containment
and diversion area for a water pumping facility for the town, located about 7 miles distant, down in the valley..
-The date on the stone building associated with the pumping facility is 1874.
-Now, as then, the water quality of the stream is excellent. Fed by numerous mountain springs, the stream supports a native brook trout population.. without being stocked.
Like a bolt out of the blue, it hit me!
The hole was the remaining feature of an old grist mill.
In 1808, according to public records, there were 40 grist mills on this side of the mountain... Virtually every stream had a mill or two... providing a near constant supply of ground grain to the population centers to the south and east.. (there were even more distilleries!)
By the 1870s, the mills had dwindled in number, consolidating milling operations to large capacity facilities. The mill pond was converted to a diversion for public water supply.
So, what I had been looking at was the remains of an old grist milling operation.
The flat "road" or "trail" was the old mill race, which had been constructed to divert water from the stream to the mill via sluice gates.
The 30 foot gap was spanned by a wooden flume (now gone) that would allow the water to pour over the front face of the mill wheel... creating an "overshot mill" -the most common of the time.
The hole in the ground was the location of the mill's water wheel, not large, only about 12 ft in diameter, but a key part of the settlement and industrialization of the American frontier... The eroded area in from of the hole was simply the outflow from the waterwheel.
And just like that.... the hole in the ground was no more.. in its place was an artifact of amazing significance.
Not for a living, but definitely for the joy of discovery, and putting the pieces of the puzzle together to make a complete story.
As a boy, the thrill I got finding arrowheads and stone tools in our family garden kept me weeding and tilling for hours!
At my grandparents house, in the Shenandoah Valley there was history EVERYWHERE!
- the collection of Minnie balls;
- the unexploded Parrott shell my grandfather found in a fencepost hole;
(yes, we played with it... ignorance is bliss!)
- my great grandfathers hand tools;
- the horse drawn sled in the barn;
- my great grandfathers Colt revolver- rusted beyond use - left from the Civil War; and,
- above all, the stories, the letters, the memories, the legends (to us)
So, it surprised me when after 30 years of looking at a hole in the ground, I finally figured out the story behind it.
About a quarter of a mile from here, across a ridge and down beside a stream is a hole in the ground. Not just any hole in the ground, but a hole with a stone lay-up back wall and a large area of erosion in front of it. Since it lies in what was, in the 50s and 60s, a public picnic area, (long since closed) I had assumed it was the remains of a utility building or a privy... And that was that. I gave no more thought to it.
Then March 2020 happened. COVID19 caused folks to be sequestered..
In the interest of maintaining the fitness level required for being a guide and first responder, my training regimen was going to have to be what I had at hand. Since I live on a mountain, and back up to miles and miles of mountain trails.. I scored! I loaded up a pack with a full climbing loadout... 2 ropes, PPE, rack, first aid gear, water... a lot of weight... and set out to do 5-10 mile conditioning hikes at least every other day.
Well, the "approach hike" to the main body of trails goes right past that hole in the ground.
One day I decided that since I had nothing but time, I'd make some observations and see what I could figure out... there had to be more to the story.
-The hole was located at the base of a ridge, just a few feet in elevation above the stream that has carved out the "hollow" between two mountain ridges.
-About 20 feet above the hole was a flat trail or an old road that ran very level along the bottom of the ridge.. ending about 30 feet short of the hole.
-about 150 yards upstream, along this flat "road", was an old, stone, water containment
and diversion area for a water pumping facility for the town, located about 7 miles distant, down in the valley..-The date on the stone building associated with the pumping facility is 1874.
-Now, as then, the water quality of the stream is excellent. Fed by numerous mountain springs, the stream supports a native brook trout population.. without being stocked.
Like a bolt out of the blue, it hit me!
The hole was the remaining feature of an old grist mill.
In 1808, according to public records, there were 40 grist mills on this side of the mountain... Virtually every stream had a mill or two... providing a near constant supply of ground grain to the population centers to the south and east.. (there were even more distilleries!)
By the 1870s, the mills had dwindled in number, consolidating milling operations to large capacity facilities. The mill pond was converted to a diversion for public water supply.
So, what I had been looking at was the remains of an old grist milling operation.
The 30 foot gap was spanned by a wooden flume (now gone) that would allow the water to pour over the front face of the mill wheel... creating an "overshot mill" -the most common of the time.
The hole in the ground was the location of the mill's water wheel, not large, only about 12 ft in diameter, but a key part of the settlement and industrialization of the American frontier... The eroded area in from of the hole was simply the outflow from the waterwheel.
And just like that.... the hole in the ground was no more.. in its place was an artifact of amazing significance.
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