Not all old mills are old, according to Jeff Donat, member of the Society for the Preservation of Old Mills, as he recently shared his interest in grist mills with the Palmerton Area Historical Society.

Donat went to see an old mill in Sudbury, Massachusetts, only to find it was built to look old in 1929 by Henry Ford as his method of preserving Americana.Pepperidge Farms used the mill to grind its flour until it outgrew the building. Oldsmobile used it as a background for an advertising picture, unaware that Ford had built it.In West Virginia many truly old mills were taken apart and the pieces used to build a new one in 1979.Grist, Donat said, is grain that is to be ground for flour. Other grain was not ground as fine and was used as animal feed. The earliest method was to pound the grain on a rock.A technological advance was the quern. Usually a stationary stone was on the bottom, with a movable top stone. However, Donat had a picture of a quern in which the stationary bottom section was a stump and the upper piece was section of the tree trunk about a foot thick.In 200 B.C., the Greeks developed a crude waterwheel that improved over time. Many of the early advances were failures, but by 50 B.C. the Romans had a successful water wheel.As they improved, stones were made from French quartz. Since the quartz was mined from thin layers, pieces were put together like a puzzle and held with a tight iron band. These were the Buhr stones. Many of the American stones were imported from France.Two main types of water wheels were developed depending on the typography. In hilly land, an overshot wheel was used, and where the land is flat, the water hit the wheel at the bottom. This was the undershot wheel. The wheels were so perfectly balanced that they could be turned by hand and some of them were 24-foot wheels.In Tarrytown, New York, grain was ground and put in a shaker. The fine white flour fell through first with the remainder moving on to provide whole wheat and finally bran and middlings. Middlings are used to make Cream of Wheat cereal, among other uses. White flour was considered the best there was, a nutritional idea that has changed over the years.The milling process heated the stones, so they had to be cooled. One method was with an augur which turned the stone slowly to cool it.The stones had furrows cut into them which had to be renewed to keep them sharp, a process called dressing. The flat area between the furrows is the land.A crane is used to lift and lower the top stone. They had to be close enough to grind the grain, but not to hit the other stone. It took an experienced miller to do this.As the farming communities grew, so did the mills. The miller had to know how the farmer proposed to use the grain.Other methods of grinding were developed. The idea of turbines began in 200 B.C., but it wasn't practical until the mid-1800s when metal vanes that lasted longer made them economical. A turbine could generate 30-40 horsepower.The Haines Mill near Dorney Park installed a turbine. It is administered by the Lehigh County Heritage Center. It was built in 1760 and rebuilt in 1909 following a spontaneous-combustion fire. The grain was ground over and over again until it produced the desired white flour.Steam-powered mills had to have the equipment to make steam in a separate building to prevent fires.The Old Mill in Sciota was a stop on Sullivan's March to the Wyoming Valley. It is operated twice a year and is operational thanks to the mill committee that restored it. The mill was donated to Hamilton Township in 1974 for historical purposes.The Shimer mill was built at the mouth of the Saucon Creek in 1830. It became a roller mill in 1875 by Washburn and Crosby and used to make Gold Medal Flour.The roller mills were so successful that all other mills had to convert to that method.Binney and Smith built a grinding mill in Forks Township to grind graphite to make pencils. It was their first business venture.In Connellsville, southwest Pennsylvania, George Washington built a mill in 1776. From notes and postcard pictures it was rebuilt for Washington's birthday in 1932.There are still many mills in Pennsylvania for the people interested in traveling to see them. The Internet and local historical societies are good sources for locating them.