Daniel Crider's Mill: Exploring the Mill Site on Frying Pan Creek

We had a plan and we did our homework, so we found what we were looking for. We went directly to the site of Daniel Crider's old 1791 Mill site on Frying Pan Creek. My son Bobby is a direct descendant of Daniel.

When our friend Herman Melton prepared his well researched and comprehensive book Pittsylvania's Eighteenth Centruy Grist Mills in 1889, he talked with many of the old time residents of Toshes and Frying Pan Creek in Pittsylvania County. He determined that the "prescise site of his (Daniel Crider's) mill is an unknown." The mill seems to have disappeared around the time, or before, the Franklin and Pittsylvania Railroad Depot (affectionately known as the Old Fast and Perfect) was built near the tracks.

The Siloam Methodist Church at the top of the hill on the "road from Samuel Berger's Store to Daniel Crider's mill" was established in 1832. The distance from the mill to the church is only about 2,000 feet. Less than a mile, south on the eastern side of this old road is the old Berger Cemetery.

Berger Cemetery sign on the Toshes Road.

This is a marker for Jacob Berger (1745-1837) who was Chief Wagoner in Pennsylvania during the Revolutionary War. (more on the Berger Cemetery will appear on another blog).

The well-known Berger's Store stood across the road from the large cemetery. One of the first trustees was William Crider. He was the yougest of Daniel Crider's eleven children. He was born in 1791, the same year that he father Daniel built his mill and would have been 41 years old that year.

From the church, across the Frying Pan Creek valley, is a spectactular view of Smith Mountain and the gap where the dam was constructed much later. It is here that the Staunton River cuts through those large mountains. Between this gap and the mouth of the Pig River down stream was a large Indian village prior to the European settlers arriving in this area. In 1966, I spent many days exploring the site of the Native Americans there. Look at: http://rdricketts.com/blog/excavation-of-islands-in-the-staunton-river-1966/

On Friday, May 28, 2010, my son Bobby Ricketts of Lynchburg left home at 7 am and I left Danville at the same time. We arrived within two minutes of each other at Fred Ingram's resturant in Gretna. After breakfast, we headed to our destination on Frying Pan Creek about half way on the winding roads towards Smith Mountain Dam. The green trees and fields of rolled up freshly cut hay over the rolling countryside is beautiful this time of year.

This is a view of Smith Mountain from the edge of the Siloam Church graveyard. The old Daniel Crider Mill was just over the hill in the Frying Pan Creek bottom. The old church was established here in 1832. This view of the mountain would have been about the same in 1791 when the mill was being constructed. The gap in betwen the mountains is where the Smith Mountain Dam is now located.

Our first discovery was the old miller's house chimney, across the creek and Milam Road from the old mill site. After finding this ancient and well constructed 18th century chimney, we struggled through high weeds to the north bank of Frying Pan Creek in the direction of the old mill as shown on a map we found in Pittsylvania Courthouse. We were fortunate to find a large tree down across the creek. We walked the tree to avoid getting our feet wet.

This is a beam in the creek where we first crossed. It seems to have washed down from them mill site. Not the larges bolt at left and the bent large nail at bottom left. The eight-inch nail or spike is shown in another photograph below.
(Note: Click on each picture to see a larger image).

Down the southern creek bank, we came to an embankment where the earth had been excavated at a ninety degree angle. The mill was constructed here with two of the walls against the earth. There were large stones forming the foundation of the other two walls which made a square about 45 feet square. The building was about 25 feet from the stream. Near the mill site was a trench in the earth which served as a race. We followed the trench up stream a couple of hundred feet. We did not find the dam site because the water was relatively deep, slightly muddy and the weeds were high at a power line where we lost the trench.

Before we crossed the creek, we spotted a large timber which had washed downstream. It was maybe 10" x 10" and about eight feet long (longer than a railroad tie). From the opposite bank we could see a large bent spike embedded in the timber. (See photograph below). The large nail or spike appears to be hand forged and could have been a part of the original mill.

Here we had just removed the spike from the large timber.

This is the fallen tree across the creek and the highway bridge in the background.

The large eight-inch curved spike at top was embedded in a large timber in the creek below the mill site. It was hand made by a blacksmith. Daniel Crider was a blacksmith, just as his father before him. We found the other one upstream in another beam.

Danny crossing Fryin Pan Creek just below Crider's Mill site on a fallen tree.

This is a retaining beam above the mill where the trestle for the F & P Railroad crossed Buck Branch near Frying Pan Creek a few hundren yards above the mill site. The Railroad crossed this branch and the main creek, then northeast to Pittsville and on to Gretna (formerly Elba and Franklin Junction). The line continued to connect with the main Southern Line from Washington to Atlanta.

Very old beam with a spike in the waters of Frying Pan Creek.

This is a bolt in a wooden beam at the site of the Buck Branch trestle. Between the mill and this branch is a very high cliff on the south side of the creek.

The is the old 1870s road bed for the Franklin and Pittsylvania Railroad. The mill was between the short distance between this road bed and the creek to the north. This is a cut to reduce the grade over a high cliff.

This is a large boulder, probably five feet high, near the mill site.

This is a broken piece of pottery in the creek near the mill.

Some of the foundation stones for Daniel Crider's Mill.

This is house on the site of Jacob Berger's home. Jacob's sister married Daniel Crider. They lived on large adjoining plantations. This house is not so far upstream near Frying Pan Creek. Behind this house is a large chimney for the older Jacob house which burned long ago. Just upstream of this house, Coleman D. Ramsey built a mill in 1886. There may have been an earlier mill at this site.

These relics were found on the hillside in the short distance between the railroad tracks and the mill site. The Coca Cola bottle is dated 1915. The shaving mug has flowers.

This piece of pottery was in the water near the mill site.

This is the chimney of the miller's house across the creek and road from the mill. It is unusually large and well constructed. It is likely that this chimney was constructed around 1791 at the same time as the mill. In 1860, Daniel Crider's grandson Peyton William Shelhorse (1815-1878) was the miller in 1860 and probably live here. My wife Nancye's grandfather was a grandson of this Peyton's sister Melissa Crider. He was named Peyton William Barbour after the old miller.