Colonial Pennsylvania Mills 
Because of the social and economic structure of early America, colonial mills functioned far differently than in Europe.
First, food was far more plentiful and varied. Except during the earlyperiods when colonies were originally settled, and occasionally, incities only, when large military expeditions took a great deal of food,food shortages were unknown. Colonists had plenty of meat – pigs ranwild, almost anyone could hunt, chickens and rabbits were cheap – andgrew almost every vegetable that we do on the same soil today. Mostcolonists (some 95%) lived in farming communities and food wasplentiful. Hence, bread was a much less important part of the diet thanin Europe. There was an assize of bread, but it died out shortly afterthe Revolution, was enforced only in cities (where a large number ofpeople did not bake their own bread) and then only rarely becausecompetition among bakers kept prices down.
Second, because there was no manorial system, except in New York, millscould (and were) built almost anywhere. Pennsylvania had nearly 2000 in1800, and an examination of statistics from 1770 indicates that,depending on the location, there was one mill per every 21-78 households.Newly settled areas had fewer mills because they needed time to catchup. As the map of Chester County shows (click image to see larger view), within a county that extendedabout twenty by thirty miles, there were about 200 mills. Because of theabundance of streams and rivers, windmills were unnecessary. The mapshows a concentration of mills along the major streams, but thosetownships which had them also had streams that simply don’t appear onthe map.
Third, government authority was weak (there was usually no army exceptthe militia, that is, the citizens themselves) and responsive to popularwill. People set up mills generally when and where they wanted. Millerswould only be subject to litigation if they deprived downstream folk ofwater via dams, or (like almost everyone in early America) were involvedin the actions for debt that constituted almost all the business ofearly American county and colony-wide courts. (Offenses against publicorder short of grand larceny, counterfeiting, serious assault, andmurder were usually handled summarily by justices of the peace.) InPennsylvania, many people baked their bread at home from whatever theypreferred (corn, pumpkin, wheat). Grain mills were primarily used forflour intended for export – farmers would grow wheat, which was shippedmostly to the slave colonies of the West Indies, where plantation ownersfound it more profitable to import food from abroad than to give up thescarce lands where sugar – which was to the 16-19th centuries what oilis to the twentieth – could be grown. Individual farmers could choose toparticipate in the market to the extent they wished to work and obtaincommodities (via the merchants) from abroad. The miller usually took apercentage of the flour as his price.
Trouble with millers and flour seems to have occurred only in the 1780s,when the newly arrived “Hessian fly” – blame it on the enemy* — proveddevastating to the white clean wheat that was usually grown andpreferred for export (easier to clean) but yellow bearded wheat provedresistant. (There was also a red wheat.) Some farmers and millersadulterated their yellow wheat, but this seems only to have reached thelevel of complaint, not of legislation or litigation.
If a miller cheated, his nearby competition could beat him out. Unlikein Europe, there were no monopolies on mills. People did not requirebread for survival in a varied diet, and only after the Revolution (c.1800) did the contemporary taste for the white (wheat) bread preferredby the elite begin to make headway. Greedy millers were not subjects ofsarcastic humor in colonial publications as were greedy lawyers,incompetent physicians, and corrupt politicians; rather, many were socialand political leaders.
Only the lawyers, merchants and farmers outranked the millers in numbers.
For work on early mills in a given area, old town and county histories(many written around the turn of the 19-20th century) are invaluable; sois the list maintained by the Society for the Preservation of Old Mills.Locations can be scouted out – in certain places, like Centre County,they are easy to find because places are called Spring Mills, Pine GroveMills, etc. If not, find the first settlement and the river or stream onwhich it took place, and you’ll find where the earliest mills were.
*Hessian soldiers were used by the British as mercenaries in the Revolution.
Bill Pensack
Penn State University
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