LIDAR imaging showing the footprint of Furley Mill, courtesy Herring Run Archeology Project
|
Present day
|
Furley Mill: Powering Community on the Herring Run
“There is no neighborhood in any part of the United States without a water-grist-mill for grinding the corn of the neighborhood.”
From Thomas Jefferson to Brissot de Warville, 16 August 1786.
With multiple owners over a hundred years, Furley Mill played an important role for communities along the Herring Run.
Furley Mill was built by or for Daniel Bowly II, the owner of Furley Hall, on the bank of Herring Run before 1811. It was described in deeds of its sale over the years as a custom mill, typically operated by two employees, which ground corn, wheat, and animal feed for local farmers.
Furley Mill was one of several mills along the Herring Run in the 18th and 19th centuries. Similar operations could be found in every rural community in the United States, grinding corn into meal and wheat into grain for individual use or sale. In addition to providing essential food processing services, the local gristmill often had a larger role in the community, as a locus for other businesses such as blacksmith shops, distilleries, and general stores, and as a social center for the surrounding community.
The description of Furley as a “custom” mill is significant: in Baltimore and in the rest of the country, there were two broad categories of mills: local, custom mills that produced meal and flour for individual customers and the local market, and merchant mills. Merchant mills were larger, made products intended for the international market, and they played a significant role in the Industrial Revolution. In contrast, custom mills like Furley helped to slow the industrialization and modernization of rural communities by supporting smaller agricultural operations. The custom mills along Herring Run allowed the neighborhoods of Northeast Baltimore to retain their rural character into the early 20th century, rather than transforming into company towns like Hampden, Woodberry, Oella, or Ashland.
By 1880, the mill was owned and run by George F. Coxon, and “Coxon’s Furley Mill” was shown as a place name on maps of the area in the late nineteenth century. Furley Mill caught fire and burned, along with its contents of grain and feed, in February of 1889, but “Coxon’s Mill” remained as a place name on maps until 1941, when the memory of the mill finally vanished from the landscape.
Sources:
“From Thomas Jefferson to Brissot de Warville, 16 August 1786,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-10-02-0180. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 10, 22 June–31 December 1786, ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954, pp. 261–263.]
1909, Baltimore - Coxon. (n.d.) https://www.coxonclub.com/1909-baltimore-typhoid-coxon-herring-run/
Baltimore County Democrat, February 23, 1889, p.3
Hawkins, Leslie (2008). “I Am History, Don’t Destroy Please”: Three Gristmills and Their Communities in Wake County, North Carolina.” Master’s thesis in history, North Carolina State University, December 5, 2008. http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/resolver/1840.16/1556.
Hasse, Larry (1984). Watermills in the South: Rural Institutions Working against Modernization Agricultural History, Vol. 58, No. 3, Symposium on the History of Rural Life in America (Jul., 1984), pp. 280-295 (16 pages) https://www.jstor.org/stable/3743080
Sharrer, G. Terry (1982). “The Merchant-Millers: Baltimore’s Flour Milling Industry, 1783-1860,” Agricultural History 1:146.
Evans, Priscilla Ann (1974). “Merchant Gristmills and Communities, 1820-1880: An Economic Relationship,” Missouri Historical Review 3:318.
“There is no neighborhood in any part of the United States without a water-grist-mill for grinding the corn of the neighborhood.”
From Thomas Jefferson to Brissot de Warville, 16 August 1786.
With multiple owners over a hundred years, Furley Mill played an important role for communities along the Herring Run.
Furley Mill was built by or for Daniel Bowly II, the owner of Furley Hall, on the bank of Herring Run before 1811. It was described in deeds of its sale over the years as a custom mill, typically operated by two employees, which ground corn, wheat, and animal feed for local farmers.
Furley Mill was one of several mills along the Herring Run in the 18th and 19th centuries. Similar operations could be found in every rural community in the United States, grinding corn into meal and wheat into grain for individual use or sale. In addition to providing essential food processing services, the local gristmill often had a larger role in the community, as a locus for other businesses such as blacksmith shops, distilleries, and general stores, and as a social center for the surrounding community.
The description of Furley as a “custom” mill is significant: in Baltimore and in the rest of the country, there were two broad categories of mills: local, custom mills that produced meal and flour for individual customers and the local market, and merchant mills. Merchant mills were larger, made products intended for the international market, and they played a significant role in the Industrial Revolution. In contrast, custom mills like Furley helped to slow the industrialization and modernization of rural communities by supporting smaller agricultural operations. The custom mills along Herring Run allowed the neighborhoods of Northeast Baltimore to retain their rural character into the early 20th century, rather than transforming into company towns like Hampden, Woodberry, Oella, or Ashland.
By 1880, the mill was owned and run by George F. Coxon, and “Coxon’s Furley Mill” was shown as a place name on maps of the area in the late nineteenth century. Furley Mill caught fire and burned, along with its contents of grain and feed, in February of 1889, but “Coxon’s Mill” remained as a place name on maps until 1941, when the memory of the mill finally vanished from the landscape.
Sources:
“From Thomas Jefferson to Brissot de Warville, 16 August 1786,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-10-02-0180. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 10, 22 June–31 December 1786, ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954, pp. 261–263.]
1909, Baltimore - Coxon. (n.d.) https://www.coxonclub.com/1909-baltimore-typhoid-coxon-herring-run/
Baltimore County Democrat, February 23, 1889, p.3
Hawkins, Leslie (2008). “I Am History, Don’t Destroy Please”: Three Gristmills and Their Communities in Wake County, North Carolina.” Master’s thesis in history, North Carolina State University, December 5, 2008. http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/resolver/1840.16/1556.
Hasse, Larry (1984). Watermills in the South: Rural Institutions Working against Modernization Agricultural History, Vol. 58, No. 3, Symposium on the History of Rural Life in America (Jul., 1984), pp. 280-295 (16 pages) https://www.jstor.org/stable/3743080
Sharrer, G. Terry (1982). “The Merchant-Millers: Baltimore’s Flour Milling Industry, 1783-1860,” Agricultural History 1:146.
Evans, Priscilla Ann (1974). “Merchant Gristmills and Communities, 1820-1880: An Economic Relationship,” Missouri Historical Review 3:318.
PO Box 16167
Baltimore, MD 21218 410-417-8565 |