A Hollow Tree For A Mill Hoop

Did you know? As early as 1774, Jacob and Josiah Minor ran a grist mill on the Little Juniata, where the Barree Iron Works later stood, so simple that it was long preserved as a relic.

The pioneer millwright Edward Bell described it. The mill house was about twelve feet high and about fourteen square, made of small logs, with neither floor nor loft. The tub wheel was some three feet across. In place of a hoop around the millstones they used a hollow buttonwood tree, cut off to fit. The meal trough was made from part of a gum tree, and the bolting chest had a pair of deer skins spliced together for a door. There was not an ounce of iron about the chest or bolting reel.

In the last years of the Revolution the mill was run by lessees. One of them, Peter Crum, was killed by Indians on his way home to what is now Logan Township.

Checked 2026-10-03 · County histories and primary sources, read in full

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