Photo courtesy of Jim Miller.
Gazing across the lush green grass surrounding Cow Creek Pond dam in Gloucester County, Virginia, one cannot help but wonder about the history of the old dilapidated water mill racked by weather and time. This is the story of the Cow Creek Mill. The present Cow Creek Mill was built or rebuilt just after the Civil War, because nearly all the mills in Gloucester County were burned by Union Army raiding parties. There was a shortage of gristmills to handle the steadily growing farm production as things slowly returned to normal after the brutal conflict of the war.
Maris Vernon Kerns, Sr., at age 30, was an accomplished and firmly established millwright working and living, with his wife and their three small children, in Rock Mills Farm in Bart Township, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. In 1857, he was contacted by friends he had known when they lived in Lancaster County, PA. The Landis family had moved to Gloucester County, VA, and were planning to build water-powered gristmills there. They offered Maris Kerns, Sr., the job of supervising the construction of a water-powered gristmill. The Kerns were not eager to leave friends, family and the business connections they had established in Pennsylvania. Over the years, his work in Pennsylvania had established for him a great reputation as a capable and reliable builder of water mills. However, the challenge offered by the Landis family for Maris Kerns, Sr., was irresistible.
Photo courtesy of Charles J. Kerns, Sr. Revocable Trust.
So it was that Maris Kerns, Sr., in 1857, journeyed to Gloucester County to begin his new life. He had gone ahead to get started on his first mill and to establish a home for his family. They followed a year later in September of 1858. It is believed the Kerns family may have traveled by Conestoga wagon or perhaps in an overland touring wagon.
Kern’s first project was to design and build the “Gloucester Steam Mills,” on the upper branch of the Poropotank Creek, on the road between Plain View and Adner, Virginia. That road would later become Route 33. Building the mill was an ambitious project consisting of the massive mill powered by two 40-foot steam boilers. To build it and eventually run it, Kerns hired a crew of some 36 workmen. He also built a residence for his family, housing for the workmen and two other houses for associates of the mill operation.
Then, on April 12, 1861, life as they knew it changed for the Kerns family as well as everyone else in the country, when the Confederate Army bombarded Union soldiers at Fort Sumter, South Carolina. The Civil War had begun. Despite his Northern background and the fact that his brother William had already joined the Union Army, Maris Kerns, Sr., enlisted. He joined the Confederate Army and was assigned to Company A of the 5th Virginia Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. Maris Kerns, Sr., soon became the Regimental Bugler. He played the violin and the flute, so he was a likely candidate for becoming a bugler. Kerns fought under Captain Frank Bridges in the unit commanded by General B. Taliaferro. His son Franklin L. Kerns is quoted in a family history as recalling “my father leaving to meet Captain Bridges, playing ‘Dixie’ on his bugle, which could be heard after he passed out of sight through the woods.” It is interesting to note that Maris Kerns’s talents, knowing his expertise as a millwright and builder, were not used as an engineer but rather as a bugler.
Photo courtesy of Bob Cerullo.
The old steam mill that Kerns built was burned down by Union Troops, as were many of the mills in the South. Fortunately, the three houses Kerns built were left untouched, despite being just 300 yards from the steam mill. Kerns’s family was never hurt by the Union soldiers, but they were frequently harassed. Kerns’s wife, Emma Jane, decided to move to Hickory Hill, a secluded farm owned by their friends, the Landis family. It was an out-of-the-way spot between Ark and Signpine, VA. In this safer home, she was able to raise her own food and have a private school for her children and the children of other families in the area. “Aunt Lucy,” an African-American woman, did the cooking and the housework.
Mechanical and structural drawing of Cow Creek Mill by Mr. Kerns circa June 1866. Photo courtesy of Charles J. Kerns, Sr. Revocable Trust.
Maris Kearns, Sr, was home on furlough, probably in the spring of 1864, when he discovered that the Cow Creek Mill had been burned to the ground by Union Forces. During that furlough, he visited Woods Crossroads in Gloucester, VA, where he was captured by Union forces. He was shipped to the Federal Prison Camp at Point Lookout, which was part of the Fort Lincoln North Carolina System of Defenses. Marius Kerns, Sr., remained in prison until the end of the Civil War, at which time he was transported by boat to Savannah, Georgia, and released. With no other means of transportation available to him, he walked home to Gloucester with his friend, telegrapher Charles Minor.
When the Cow Creek Mill was actually built is something of a mystery. According to a family history provided by Charles Kerns, Jr., his great, great grandson, Maris Kerns, Sr., made the original drawings for the mill in 1866. Another account reports: “A third mill standing is Cow Creek Mill on Route 14. No one knows for sure when this unusual mill was built, but existing records date ownership back to 1825. However, before her death, Mrs. H.O. Sanders, a recognized authority on Gloucester County history, claimed to own the will of George Wythe Booth of Bellville. This will bequeathed ownership in Cow Creek Mill to his daughters when he died in 1806, which supports Mrs. Sanders’ claim that the mill dates from the 1700s.”
Miller Myron Hall at gristmill. Courtesy of The Daily Press.
It is perhaps possible that the original mill built in the 1700s was destroyed, and that Maris Kerns, Sr., designed and built a new mill on the same foundation. In a letter dated June 24, 1899, Robert Kerns Norfleet wrote, “Records indicate that since 1792 several mills have been constructed and modified on the current site of Kerns Mill. Part of the present mill was built about 1820 and expanded during the early to mid-1800s. It is a rather large commercial building which was powered by two overshot water wheels. First steam, and then diesel power was later added to drive the flour milling equipment. Other commercial establishments operated near the mill, but none remain today. At one time or another they included a sawmill, a casket maker and undertaking establishment, and a blacksmith shop and foundry, which produced plow points among other farm items.”
Property records from 1948 show the mill belonged to E.W. Noble. On February 21, 1951, the Daily Press newspaper in Newport News, VA, wrote about Melvin Foster, who took great pride in the 6,000 pounds of cornmeal a week he ground at the Cow Creek Mill. In that same story, it was reported that legend has it that the old mill wheel installed at the Cow Creek Mill actually dates to the Civil War and was used in another mill before being installed at Cow Creek when it was built.
In a letter dated March 4, 1929, Kerns’s son, Dr. W.W. Kerns wrote: “In 1856 my father, M.V. Kerns, moved with his family from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to Gloucester, Virginia. When war was declared in 1861, he was among the first to join the Gloucester Cavalry unit then forming at Gloucester Court House. In the fall of 1861, the Cavalry unit was called to arms and ordered to Richmond. In the fall of the next year, my father was one of several Gloucester boys who got furloughs to visit their families. When he came home to Hickory Hill he found that his mill, he was a millwright by trade, and most of his other property, had been destroyed by invading Northern soldiers. The contents of a well filled meat house were spared because of the quick wittedness of old Aunt Lucy Baytop, who together with her husband, Tom, was Mother’s faithful protector all through the war.”
As the story goes, it was with no little pride that old Aunt Lucy told the elder Kerns that after seeing the soldiers burn his mill, break into the meat house, steal all the hams and then wrap them in the best of ‘Miss Emily’s’ quilts, she warned them off, shouting at the top of her lungs that the Yankees used small pox infested quilts, which caused the Yankees to drop the quilts and hams and run off quickly down the lane.
Water wheel gear drive belts to power machines. Photo courtesy of The Daily Press.
The Cow Creek Mill was a marvel for its time, being four stories high and larger than most water mills. Over the years, it served the community and marked an era before electric and diesel power made it possible for massive mills to be constructed anywhere. Unquestionably, Maris Kerns was an extremely talented designer and millwright. The tenacity of the old mill to still be standing despite the ravages of time and neglect stand testimony to his expertise. In July of 1938, the Daily Press reported that a flood, which occurred after a dam on Cow Creek Pond broke, caused an estimated $15,000 worth of damage to the property and buildings ($268,000 in today’s dollars). “The historical old Cow Creek Mill house, with its brick foundation and wall, withstood the pounding of the torrent, though badly damaged. This was the only building left standing in the wake of the flood.” When the flood water receded, workers found strewn about the grounds some 700 barrels of corn, 15 barrels of vinegar, 300 bags of salt and 200 barrels of flour. Many other items were destroyed by the flood. Badly damaged, but not destroyed, the mill was up and running in a very short time. An article in the Daily Press showed a photo of Melvin Foster milling a reported 6,000 pounds of corn each week. Myron H. Hall bought the mill in 1950. The Cow Creek Mill remained active until 1954.
Photo courtesy of Bob Cerullo.
In December of 2000, class A construction contractor Charles T. Dubose bought the old mill with an ambitious plan to fully restore it. While Dubose admits it does not look as if anything has been done, he reports the he has completed extensive work to save the mill. DuBose said when he took it over, the only alternative seemed to be to knock it down. However, he loves the mill and went to work to install vital structural beams that stabilized the mill floor by floor. All but the third floor had collapsed. His dream is to restore it to how it looked when it was a working water mill. DuBose has the ability, the equipment and the passion to restore the mill. What he is short of is money to buy the needed lumber to complete the restoration. As this is being written, he has renewed his efforts to restore the mill, which should one day be a treasured landmark in Gloucester County. Hopefully, one day the mill will be returned to its glory days. Charles T. “Tommy” Dubose can be contacted at 804-815-7704. His email address is OATH75@aol.com.