Mabry Mill: Ed and Lizzie Mabry

Teresa Maybaum photo

Picturesque Mabry Mill, with its slowly turning waterwheel, and pond reflecting the sky above, is an iconic sight on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Ed and Lizze Mabry, known to the local community as "Uncle Ed" and "Aunt Lizzie," worked side by side for decades to build and operate the mill.

Before meeting Lizzie, Ed Mabry was briefly married to Mollie Spangler. But shortly after the wedding in 1887, Ed found work at the Bertha Zinc Mines, located in Pulaski County, VA. The new job kept the couple apart for long periods of time. After two years, Ed and Mollie decided to end their marriage. This was very uncommon at the time: Fewer than 3% of married couples divorced in 1880s. In contrast, 40-50% of marriages end in divorce today.

While working at the Bertha Zinc mines Ed met Green DeHart, a young man who had grown up near Ed’s childhood home. Green invited Ed to come home with him for a visit, where Ed met Green’s older sister, Mintoria Elizabeth DeHart.

Lizzie Mabry

NPS photo

Known as "Lizzie" to her family, she stood 5'10" tall and had long dark hair and a dark complexion with blue/green eyes due to her French Huguenot heritage. Ed married Lizzie on March 1, 1891. Both were 24 years old.

After they were married, Ed sold 50 of his 100 acres of land. They settled on the remaining 50 acres to farm, but it was not a job that Ed enjoyed. Ed and Lizzie agreed that building and owning a gristmill would be a better idea. However the land they owned was not suitable, so put their dream on hold while they earned money to buy new property.

Ed and Lizzie moved to Bottom Creek, West Virginia in 1896. Ed became a blacksmith for the coal mine. They stayed there for three years before moving back home. They sold their 50 acres of land and moved to the area where Mabry Mill is currently located.

The first thing Ed built was a blacksmith and wheelwright shop in 1900-1901. Between 1903 and 1905, Ed and Lizzie acquired land and water rights, then built their mill, which was likely completed in 1908.

By 1910, a sawmill was added to the east side of the gristmill. Next, they built their woodworking shop on the west side of the gristmill. Then they began work on a new blacksmith and wheelwright shop closer to the gristmill. Finally sometime around the 1920s, they built a new home.

Ed and Lizzie worked well together until Ed became ill in the 1930s. He used crutches to walk and eventually lost use of his arms as well. In an article by Elizabeth Hunter in Blue Ridge Country, The Mabry’s at Mabry Mill or Giving Lizzie Her Due, she provides details of the Mabry’s later years. When Ed passed away, Lizzie was afraid to stay in the house by herself and had a young couple stay with her. Eventually, she chose to live with her sister in Vesta, VA.

Elizabeth Hunter’s article describes the Mabry's reaction to the federal government buying their property to create the Blue Ridge Parkway:

“Ed knew the government planned to build the Blue Ridge Parkway past his mill and through his farm, though he didn’t believe — ’til they bought part of his land — that the road would ever be built. Neighbors disagreed as to his reaction to the project. One said he grumbled that a man who had “never bothered nobody” ought to be left alone. Another said Ed thought the price the government paid him was fair.

As for Lizzie, she was thrilled when she learned that the park service was “going to make a scenery” out of the mill, which had gotten rickety after Ed lost the use of his legs. The wooden races had rotted; the wheel had begun to list. (When that happened, the Mabry’s installed a kerosene motor and kept grinding corn.)

To have seen their place restored, to have known that people would come from miles away to look at it — that the mill would become the parkway’s most popular and photographed attraction — now that would have made Lizzie proud”