Page 37 - The Hunt - Summer 2020

Mill races channeled water into the building. More than 60 pounds of weight on the paddles lining the wheel would set it spinning.
the First State, a 1791 report on industrial Wilmington listed 12 flour mills, six sawmills, one paper mill, one barley mill, one slit mill for manufacturing nails, and one snuff mill. In 1804, the du Pont family added gunpowder and blasting powder to that list. Their fiber mills for wool and cotton would come later. Water- driven manufacturing continued through the 1800s.
Today, almost all of the mills have vanished, with
the exception of a few preserved for other purposes. Hoffman’s Mill in Chadds Ford is now the Brandywine River Museum of Art. Walker’s Mill in Wilmington is an office building. Breck’s Mill, on the opposite side
of the creek from Walker’s, now houses a U.S. Post Office, an art gallery and a studio. The du Ponts’ milling legacy has been preserved for visitors and researchers as
the Hagley Museum & Library in Wilmington. Here and there, traces of other mills linger as pieces of rock aLnd brick peaking through the undergrowth.
ucas Clawson is one of the foremost authorities on local mills. A reference archivist at Hagley Museum, he keeps a historical map on his office wall at the Soda House, which was once
a storage building for black powder ingredients. “All along the river were great places for mills,” Clawson says.
The gradual decline in the Brandywine’s altitude was just right for powering the giant wheels used to grind ingredients or move machinery. Mill races channeled water into the building. More than 60 pounds of weight on the paddles lining the wheel would set it spinning.
(Opposite page) Walker’s Mill is now an office building. (Above) The massive wheel of an old gunpowder mill.
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