by Michele Yamamoto
In our records at the Bay Village Historical Society there is much historical evidence that the Joseph Cahoon family built at least two mills on Cahoon Creek, beginning in 1813. The grist and saw mills are now long gone but they used to sit just east of Rose Hill house on Cahoon Creek. In fact, the creek may have been the reason the Cahoon family chose to settle in this particular location in what was then called Dover Township.
According to a piece in the 1958 Bay Village City brochure, “The Bay Village Story,” it is claimed that Joseph Cahoon, who was the first settler in Dover in 1810, wrote to his wife, Lydia, about the land he chose. “Lydia, we need go no further. There is timber, all we can ever use, and the land is fine for grain and vegetables and this creek we will call Cahoon Creek, and we will build a grist mill right there.” The Bay Village Historical Society has not yet found the original copy of this letter and cannot verify the quote given, but it is certainly possible that Joseph would have expressed sentiments like these.
A granddaughter of Joseph Cahoon, Ida Maria Cahoon, wrote a book in 1910 about her family history titled “History of the Cahoon Family.” In this book, Ida states that her father, Joel, one of Joseph’s sons, helped his father to erect and operate both mills when he wasn’t serving for several months during 1814 in the War of 1812. Ida’s words are a much-referenced description of the building of the mill and some of the travel challenges faced by early settlers:
“While Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry was fighting his famous battle upon Lake Erie, September 10, 1813, a grist mill was being raised by Grandfather Cahoon and his neighbors upon Cahoon Creek, east of our house. Prior to this time, the nearest flour mill was at Newburgh, eighteen miles away. Miles seemed longer when no streams were bridged, no hills graded, and a horse or ox bore the burden of the grain to be ground, then they do today with modern means of transportation. The stones for grinding the grain were quarried from the creek by Joseph Cahoon and his son Joel. They are placed as stepping stones at the entrance to our lawn, preserved as a part of the history of the place.”
And the mill stones remain there still. Two stones rest near the Rose Hill north side porch. There is an additional stone on the south side. Several accounts claim the stones for grinding the grist were hewn from Cahoon Creek, or at least somewhere not too far away. You can still see the furrows or channels cut into a sickle pattern on one side of the stones. From the north porch of Rose Hill, you may look down upon Cahoon Creek and see the spot where the grist mill once stood. No remains can be seen today of that mill.
Another water-powered mill, a saw mill, was built just north of and not long after the grist mill. This saw mill is credited with cutting the lumber used to build the Cahoon’s permanent framed house in 1818, known as Rose Hill. According to recollections in our archives, there may still have been remnants of the saw mill into the 20th century.
Photo from Wilfred Swanker, claiming to be taken of the “Cahoon Mill.” Based on Swanker’s location description in a newspaper interview for West Life in 1982, this could actually be the ruins of the old Oviatt saw mill, located further south on Cahoon Creek, across from Lincoln Road.
This photo was identified by an unknown person as the “Cahoon grist mill.” This is unlikely the Joseph Cahoon grist mill, in part, because writings from his granddaughter, Ida Maria, tell us Joel B. Cahoon rebuilt the original mill in the 1840s, but it was out of use by the end of the Civil War though it may be the mill of different Cahoon family member.
A short history about water power and mills in early America
In the early days of America, most settlers on the frontier were farmers. Wood, water and good farming soil were in abundance but man power was scarce and expensive. Technology helped to save time and money. Water was an energy source that could be harnessed to replace both humans and animals to power machinery, move grist mills, saw mills and power cloth mills, among other uses.
Grist mills were a top priority for settlers as baked goods like bread were a staple of many early American families. They were usually built before schools and churches in a new township. This was because grinding grist (any grain that has been separated from its chaff) into flour was quite physically demanding and time consuming. Grain farmers would travel up to 50 miles away to avoid the work and the Cahoon mill was probably filled with fellow farmers from the area, considering the nearest mill at the time was reportedly in Newburgh, some 18 miles away. These farmers likely paid for the service by offering part of their grain harvest to the Cahoons.
There are no definitively proven photos of the old Cahoon mills in the Bay Village Historical Society collections. We can surmise, from other mills constructed at the time and the topography of the Cahoon land, that the Cahoon grist mill was powered by water moving up Cahoon Creek to either a large vertical undershot or breastshot wheel. A millpond or dam, which is referenced in Cahoon letters as late as the 1840s, along with a millrace channel, helped to direct, contain and control the flow of water. The wheel would power a system of gears inside the millhouse that could power a set of mill stones and maybe even a series of pulleys. A multistoried building meant that gravity could provide help in moving the grain down through the processing. The grist is fed into a hole in the middle of the top “running” stone and as that stone moves over the one below it, the grist is ground by the flat cut sections between the two stones. The grist becomes a finer flour and the long furrows cut into the stones move the grain outward to be collected.
The inside of the model grist mill at Rose Hill shows how the Cahoon’s grist mill probably worked. The grain was stored at the top and brought down by a chute to a hole at the top of the running mill stone. The wooden peg gears, which could more easily be replaced when broken, were turned by an outside water-powered wheel. The Cahoon mill probably ground its own corn as it is listed as one of their crops in the late 1800s.
You may get some idea of technology like this used during the 1800s at the Rose Hill Museum. There are various tools and machines on display that once aided early farmers. One of these tools is the working model 1813 grist mill. This model shows how harnessing water may power the wheel to the inner workings of a building. With the help of a docent, you may even try to power this mill yourself!
Thanks to all of the fantastic volunteers who helped make this model grist mill possible, including:
Wood Structure – Senior Center Wood Shop at City Hall, Ed Wozniak, Jim Rowe, and Tony Pantina
Painting – Pamela Ebert and Ed Neal
Interior Structure and Mechanical Fittings – Dan Krieg
Assisted by – Michele Yamamoto, Cathy Flament, and Marie Albano
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Source for some of the early history of grist mills in American drawn from:
General history taken from Penn State University website “Building Community: Medieval Technology and American History” See: https://www.engr.psu.edu/mtah/articles/colonial_wood_water.htm