Several years ago for my birthday Peggy asked me what I wanted to do. Since we bought the farm and had the grist mill, I have become a mill enthusiast. I had looked on a very detailed map and saw several mills listed in VA that was semi close to our farm in TN. I told her I wanted to go look at these old mills and to find one in particular. It was named the same as ours. The story was told to us that the brother to the guy who owned our mill had a mill also in VA. Could this be it?

I mapped out our route and on my birthday we headed out for our adventure. It did not take long until we were on some small back roads that went up and down and curved like a snake. We found the first one and it was in fair shape but was not in operation. It was about half the size of ours. We moved on to the next mill which had the same name as ours. We were having trouble finding it and saw a farmer on a tractor coming down the road. We stopped him and he told us where it was and even some history of it. He did say that it was the mill of our owner’ brother. When we got to the mill it looked some like ours, but it did not have a wheel. It was a turbine driven mill.

We were told we could go in and look at it by a lady doing some work at the owner’s house and she would have the owner come out. We looked around for about 30 minutes and the owner never did come out so we left. The lady had told us his wife was very sick, so we did not want to bother him. The mill was in need of a lot of work. I hope to make it back there and talk to the owner someday.

We left out and went back the way we came in. Up and down some hills and around the snake curves again. We continued our mill adventure and stopped at 3 other mills. None of them were in operation and all were in need of repairs. It was an exciting day and a good learning experience for the boys and for Peggy and me. Our love for old mills is growing with each one we see.

As a side note to the mill with the same name as ours. My brother from Ohio was in one week and we went to the farm. He had an Ohio friend that had an old farm that he thought was close to ours, but in VA. We decided to find it. It was about 30 minutes from our farm. Looking on a map it looked like this farm was close to the mill we had gone to. After we looked at his friend’s farm I said let’s go down this road and see if we see this mill. We went about five miles and found it. It was a real surprise to me that we traveled for several hours, up and down and around to find it the first time and here it was just about 35-40 minutes from our farm.

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Posted by jenig

that is neat!
anyways, i just wanted to come by and say hi, plus i wanted to thank you for the sweet comment you left on my pg.

also, please give Peggy a huge hug from me. the message she left on our machine was so sweet and endearing. she is so lovely. we actually like her the best out of your whole family. hahaha

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Posted by Ashli

That sounds like so much fun, and what an adventure! Where in VA did you go and look about? I'm intrigued... LOL I have family near the VA boarder up on the WVa side. :o) We love traveling around there and looking at places like that.

God bless and warm wishes for the rest of your birthday moments ;o)

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