GristMills of Walnut Creek, Edgecombe, NC
A bit of background…
https://www.ncpedia.org/gristmills
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This is my area of interest in this Study…
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I ran across a mention of Hugh B. Johnson having snooped around Edgecombe County and some Mills thereabouts so I contacted Traci the librarian to see if she had the article mentioned. She did and provided a handy dandy link:
GRIST MILLS, NOW THING OF PAST, HAD HEYDAY IN EARLY HISTORY,
Always Located Beside Flowing Water, by Hugh Johnston
From the Wilson Daily Times, July 2, 1976
Feb 2001, Vol. 10, pg. 4-6
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Mr. Johnson did not have any dirt on the Mills I fancied but he did have a few comments I had not thought of (such as The Mill was where folks did considerable gossiping): “In the old days, corn bread and bacon were two food staples seldom absent from the tables of our ancestors. Since water provided the only available power for machinery, and was also fairly slow in its operation, grist mills were established little by little in all the strategic locations in this area for the purpose of supplying this unending demand for cornmeal. Large over-shot or under-shot wheels were used in the early mill-races to transform the flowing water into mechanical power. At a much later period the millers secured metal turbines to provide the necessary energy. The demand for flour was much smaller, and only a few milling establishments carried the fine-cut and carefully adjusted stones suitable for grinding wheat.
Obtain Permission
Most prospective mill-owners sought permission from the county court, particularly when another person owned land on the opposite side of the stream that would be damned [sic]. The court would then appoint a jury to look over the site and decide on the damages payable to the other property owner for his part of the land to be flooded. Although some locations used were not especially suitable, the dam-site was usually at a narrow point in the stream valley. Most of the dams were constructed of earth moved by men and carts, with a timbered spillway in the middle.”
Johnson continued: “[T]he water mill business required the skilled services of the professional millwright. He handled everything from the construction of the water-wheel to the more precise setting and adjusting the upper and nether millstones. Gears, wheels, and shafts could be made of hardwoods, but the large stones had to be quarried and shaped from the living rock. There was apparently such a quarry in Wilson County, for there is a small stream called Millstone Creek that flows into Bloomery Swamp about two miles N.W. of Finch’s Mill.
It was doubtedly [sic] to this location John (J) Driver of Nash County referred on December 26, 1795, when he sold Benjamin Cobb for $25.00 in silver coins “one certain Quarry of Mill Stone Rock lying in a certain Trak of Land that said Cobb sold unto the said Driver and said Rock lies close to the Rock called the flat Rock and by Moses Smelley Plantation and where Joseph Woodell cut mill stones for said Cobb,” witnessed by Drury Williams and Micajah (x) Bailey.
The social aspects of the old water mills were not inconsiderable. Practically everybody went to mill from time to time and exchanged conversation with the miller and any other customers who happened to be present. The water wheels were notoriously slow, but they produced unsurpassed meal while providing the farmer with abundant time for talk. Crops, religion, and politics shared honors with homelier domestic items. In the days of slow transportation, few books, and no newspapers, the educated as well as the illiterate classes found much of their intellectual entertainment in going to mill, to church, and occasionally to Stantonsburg where “boughten” merchandise arrived on shallow-draft boats from the coast.
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The Bilbry Mill or if it was never called that, the Bilbry Mill Branch (which is just a small branch off the longer Killebrew Mill Branch.)
I call this mill the Bilbry Mill to distinguish it from the later Nobles Mill which is noted on the 1905 Edgecombe County Map.
Bilbry MILL
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Some nitty gritty details..
Bilbry Mill Branch
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My hunch is that this old mill site is just off the road if any intrepid trespassers want to snap a pic or two for me to ..you know, Post. For the sake of history, posterity and the greater good…(excuses if you are caught trespassing).