CHAMBER
CLIPPER
BRANCHES OF
THE BROADKILL AND THEIR MILLS
COOLSPRING
BRANCH
The
Coolspring Branch begins two to thee hundred feet up the Broadkill
River at it's junction with the Delaware Bay . On this branch was
the “Red Mill” , a grist mill owned by Samuel Paynter around
1750. Grist is grain, and a grist mill grinds it into meal or flour.
Farther “up” the branch or creek as they were often called, was
a Carding Mill and a 'tannery' which located it's tanning or soaking
vats on the banks. Carding is a textile process that disentangles,
cleans and intermixes fibers and produces a continuous web, thread or
sliver for additional processing. Tanning was the process of
producing leather from animal hides. A tennyard was one of the early
businesses of America and had its own odors. Both of these mills
were property of Hermanius Wiltbanck at one time.
BEAVER
DAM BRANCH
Beaver
Dam Branch or Creek if you wish, is the creek off the Broadkill just
a bit west of the Delaware roaut one Broadkill River Highway Bridge,
what was once known as 'Drawbridge' which was a village with it's own
post office. Mill Creek, aka today as “ Old Mill Creek “ is a
branch of this creek and was known to have several early owners. The
predominant owner's were the Holland family and the stream was then
known as Holland Mill Pond Stream and/or Hollands Old Mill Stream.
At the junction of Beaver Dam Creek and the Broadkill River there was
a ship building yard owned and operated by Babtist Lay near the
small village of “Drawbridge'. This 'boat yard is said to be the
first along the Broadkiln. Westward was Holland Mill Pond and there
James Hunter and Major William Perry erected a dam and build a timber
saw mill.
ROUND
POLE BRANCH
Where
did that name come from? John Conwell once owned the land bordering
Round Pole Branch where there was a timber saw mill owned by Ben
Benson, David Hazzard and Sam Wright around 1701 and furnished
building materials at an early time. Perhaps the first supplier. Up
stream of this saw mill was located a iron furnace that was owned by
Robert Shankland which furnished the iron used in the ship building
trade of the Broadkill River.
Traveling
east out of down town Milton on Front Street, beyond the town sewer
works you will note the waters of Round Pole Creek or Branch,
whatever you wish, on each side of the road, sometimes going under
and sometims going over the road., depending on the tide and
rainfall.
LONG
BRIDGE BRANCH
Three
of four miles east ward, on Cave Neck Road, is Long Bridge Branch.
In 1733, the Osbourne Brothers, Henry and Thomas, reserved eight
acres for a mill and John Meir erected a grist mill here hat was
destroyed by fire in 1825. Later on Gideon Waples build a causway
and dam 'downstream' where there was a 'bark mill' and a timber saw
mill owned by Governor Dr. Joseph Maull in 1815.
A
bark mill was used to grinding the roots, branches, bark or other
timber trash of a special species tree into a powder called tanbark,
for the tanning industry process. There was a pond above the mill
named Saw Mill Pond until early 1900.
Upstream
of Maulls was the joseph tour Mill in 1809 later owned by Ben
McIlvain which supplied water to the mills and in early 1900 to a
electrict generator that gave lights to the town of Milton. Upstream
of Tours Pond and dam , in 1807, was a saw mill of Zodoc James and
later Aaron Marshall in 1838 which was destroyed by fire.
PEMBERTON
BRANCH
Pemberton
Branch is on the far north fork of Broadkill, west of the town of
Milton, on which in 1809 Isaac Clowes had a grist mill at Lavinia
Crossing. There is evidence of this crossing to be seen from the
current Levinia Street. The land around Pemberton Creek was part of a
grant to Captain Henry Pemberton, became lands of Thomas Carlisle in
1717. A powder mill was planned by John Clowes but never erected,
somewhere in here there was a cotton mill, and the Pemberton mills
were sold 1809 to Arthur Melby. The cotton mill as abandond in 1864
and the grist mill sold to J. G. Betts.
OTHER
MILLS
In
Milton was Fergus Bridge Dam over the Broadkill where a grist mill
was built later known as Wagamon's Mill, three others, Waples Mill
on Prime Hook Creek, Reynolds Mill , 1809 owned by Nathan Reed,
William McIlvain. Rodrick and silas Reynolds and James Ponder. Then
on the south side of Prime Hook Creek was a mill owned by Ingram
Brothers , later sold to Arthur Milby at a sheriff sale.
The
source of this information was gathered from the “Chamber Cliper”
, printed in Milton in 1988, article by William Wagmon , Milton
historian and Wanda Clendaniel King, reported.
