The Grist Mill - Garth, 1947 Archeological Report

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NPS photo

Tub wheel foundation of the grist mill. Being under water the timbers are still well preserved.

In Spalding's inventory of mission property the grist mill is described thus: "1 Flour Mill (without mill house) Stones good size and quality, stone light, heavy dam & large pond with race. Forbay & Floom secured at great expense. . ." (16) The structure may have consisted of a simple milling platform which supported the stones and other milling equipment. That the mill was proving inadequate for the needs of the mission and the immigrants is evident from the fact that Dr. Whitman planned to build a new and better one and at the time of the massacre had obtained new milling machinery and had commissioned Josiah Osborn to build the new mill. (17) There are several statements to the effect that there was no house over the old mill. Yet the fact that it was in use from 1844 to 1847 and was employed for grinding almost the year around makes it likely that it at least had a roof. There was also a threshing machine and a turning lathe on the platform which would need protection from the elements. No doubt the structure was open on the sides. The mill was more than likely of the type called tub mill, (18) which were very common in rural areas in the eastern United States in the nineteenth century. In this type of mill the four or five foot diameter wheel turned in a horizontal plane, it being set as low to the ground as possible. A wooden drive shaft went from the center of the wheel up through the floor of the milling platform some six or eight feet above. Here the shaft passed through the lower mill stone, which was stationary, and fitted into the upper stone (the runner) which turned. By this means there was a direct drive between the mill wheel and the upper stone, no gearing being required. Water was conducted from the pond to the wheel by means of a flume.

The earthen dikes to the old mill pond, though worn down in places, are still in a fair state of preservation. Some parts are as much as five feet high. Where the two dikes approach one another to form the race was the obvious place for the mill. We started a trench about twenty feet south of the main dikes and after removing about ten inches of gravel and two inches of mud struck heavy hewn pine timbers, which proved to be part of a foundation. The timber, nine to twelve inches in diameter, were laid three one way and two the other making a level platform approximately seven and one-half feet square, the diagonal of which was in line with the mill race. They were in a fair state of preservation, though somewhat worn and decayed on top. This platform probably served to support the mill wheel. It was low enough and wet enough so that it did not burn when the Indians destroyed the rest of the mill in 1855. A foundation of this sort was needed to support the considerable weight the wheel and the runner above. Additional hewn timbers lay in odd positions on either side of the wheel foundation, but we had to discontinue our summer's excavation before we could completely uncover them. A post found about ten feet northwest of the platform may be one of those which supported the milling platform above. Although no charred timbers have so far been found, in the area between the wheel foundation and the border of the north dike there are indications of intense heat turned the soil a deep orange color. This probably resulted the burning of the mill in 1855.

Until recently we had hoped to locate the granite mill stones in the marshy ground near the mill site. We now know that the stones were removed from the site and used in the Simms and Dent mill which was built in 1859 just south of Walla Walla. (19) They may yet be located in this area. The stones were forty inches in diameter, a fact that should facilitate their identification.

 

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