Phase II and Phase III Archaeological Database and Inventory
18HO261 S. Ridgely Saw Mill
Diagnostic Artifact Data
Features
Summary
The Hayfield Gristmill, erroneously also known as the S. Ridgely Saw Mill (18HO261), is the archeological remains associated with an early 19th through early 20th century gristmill in West Friendship in Howard County. The site consists of the stone foundations of the former mill, portions of the mill race, and associated artifact deposits. It is situated on the western edge of a low terrace overlooking the floodplain of Terrapin Branch (a tributary of the Middle Patuxent River). Most of the site today is a grassy field, but portions are wooded with mixed hardwoods and dense understory. Greenbrier and tall grasses surround the stone foundations. The ground surrounding the foundations slopes dramatically toward the mill race feature. Observable portions of the foundation are located at the base of the slope along what is most likely the wheel pit area. The wheel pit consists of a channel between two stone walls that are approximately 2 meters apart. A short stone wall is also present at the head of the wheel pit. Standing water is present in part of the wheel pit and in the tailrace. Other nearby ditches and channel features may be related. Soils at the site are Glenville-Codorus silt loams.
Two mills are known the have operated in the vicinity of 18HO261 during the 19th century. The two mills, a gristmill and a sawmill collectively referred to as the “Hayfield Mills”, are first definitively documented on the property in the 1840s under the ownership of one Samuel Norwood Ridgely. There is some indication, however, that milling may have been taking place in the area prior to 1810. The will of a Charles “Black Head Ridgely”, a Justice of the Peace for Baltimore County (1779 to 1784), delegate to the Maryland General Assembly (and Speaker of the House), and wealthy landowner bequeaths his “Hayfield” plantation to his eldest son, Samuel, as well as a slave listed in the will as “Simon the Miller”. Charles Ridgely’s impressive estate was probated in Baltimore County in 1813. Samuel Norwood Ridgely had his inherited lands resurveyed in 1820, but the records do not make mention of a mill. Nonetheless, the mention of a slave named “Simon the Miller, suggests that milling operations were already underway at Hayfield by 1810.
The first definitive description of a mill at Hayfield is an 1842 deed for 86 acres from Samuel Norwood Ridgely to his son, Samuel Norwood Ridgely, Jr. The deed mentions both a sawmill and gristmill at Hayfield in the property description and mentions other landscape features such as the “Grist Mill Road”, a dam, a headrace and a tailrace. The deed reveals that the headrace for the sawmill extended east from the Middle Patuxent River, and suggests that the saw and gristmills are in close proximity.
In 1849, a 106 acre portion of the “Hayfield” tract, including a gristmill passed to Samuel Norwood Ridgely’s son, Dr. Charles C. Ridgely, who operated the mill through the 1860s. Further details about the Hayfield mills are revealed from the records of this transaction. The documentation ultimately reveals that both the gristmill and the sawmill were in existence by 1842 at the latest. They were located on contiguous parcels: the sawmill on the 86 acre parcel on the east side of the Terrapin Branch conveyed to Samuel Norwood Ridgely, Jr., in 1842, and the gristmill on a 106 acre parcel on the west side of Terrapin Branch conveyed to Charles C. Ridgely in 1849. The races for both mills drew water from the Middle Patuxent River, and each employed the use of a dam to ensure that the flow and head of water was sufficient to power the mills.
Upon acquiring the gristmill and water rights from his father in 1849, Dr. Charles Ridgely took over the operation of the gristmill. Charles was born ca. 1808 and married Louisa, a woman almost ten years younger, with whom he had at least 4 children, including Samuel Ridgely, born ca. 1838. Dr. Ridgely was a physician by trade, likely a country doctor, a profession that kept his family financially secure but not wealthy. Dr. Ridgely would likely have supplemented his professional income from the sale of his crops as well as from the proceeds of the gristmill. The Federal Farm Schedule of 1850 attributes 200 acres with a cash value of $4,000 to Dr. Ridgely. The schedule shows five horses, five cows, and twenty pigs on his farm, as well as an annual crop yield that included wheat, Indian corn, oats, Irish potatoes, orchard produce, butter, hay, and beeswax and honey.
As a country doctor, Ridgely would hardly have had the time to learn the technically advanced, specialized skills of a miller. Consequently, Dr. Ridgely’s son, Samuel, learned the profession as he is listed as a 22-year-old miller living in Ridgely’s household in the 1860 Federal Census. That same year, Dr. Ridgely’s gristmill is shown on a map of Howard County, located west of the sawmill owned by his brother. With the exception of a 3 month period between 1864 and 1865, Dr. Charles C. Ridgely retained ownership of the 106 acre parcel with the gristmill until 1869, when the tract was sold to a Milton W. Shipley.
Milton W. Shipley and his son, Milford D. Shipley, together owned and operated the Hayfield gristmill for 43 years, from 1869 until 1912, during which time the gristmill became known as “Shipley’s Mill”. Milton Welsh Shipley was born in 1827 in nearby Sykesville (Carroll County). Milton and his wife, Jane, an immigrant from Ireland, had ten children together, including Milford F. Shipley, the eldest, born in 1854. Census records indicate that by 1870, Milford Shipley and his family had taken up residence on the Hayfield property and employed the services of a 40-year-old to operate the gristmill. By 1878 Milton Shipley had acquired an additional 133-acre tract of Hayfield, together forming a 241 holding noted on an 1878 map.
In contrast to Dr. Ridgely, for whom the gristmill was a supplemental investment, Milton Shipley appears to have placed a greater emphasis on the enterprise. The Federal Farm Schedule for 1870 reveals Milton Shipley’s 107 acre tract of Hayfield, among the smaller-sized tracts in the vicinity, yielded considerably more wheat and oats than adjacent farms. Shipley is also shown with 8 horses, more than any of the neighboring farms. This suggests that Shipley was using the gristmill to process wheat and oats for commercial sale and delivering them via horse and wagon, perhaps to market in Baltimore. Also recorded on Shipley’s farm are five cows and 10 pigs, as well as crop yields in Indian corn, tobacco, Irish potatoes, wine, butter, and honey.
Additionally, Milton Shipley was one of two groups of investors that applied to the Maryland General Assembly in the 1870s for the right to establish toll roads in the area, presumably as a money-making venture capitalizing on the traffic to and from area mills. In 1874, the General Assembly passed an act to incorporate the West Friendship and Linden Turnpike Company to “make and construct a continuous turnpike road from West Friendship, near the nineteen mile stone on the Frederick Turnpike, to Linden, over the present bed of the county road or roads leading thereto”. Partners with Shipley in this venture were area landholders, including Enoch Selby, Reuben Ridgely, and Thomas Grimes, all shown on an 1878 map owning property along what is now MD 32. Several years later in 1876, Shipley was a partner in another toll road venture, “to make a turnpike from Latonsville, in Montgomery County, via Triadelphia, to the Frederick Turnpike in Howard County; and also a broad road from Isaac’s Mill to the seventeen mile stone on the Frederick Turnpike, the said route to be on the present bed of the county road”. It is unclear whether or not these ventures were executed.
The 1878 map depicts Milton Shipley’s mill as both a gristmill and a sawmill. However, there is evidence to support Shipley’s Mill as both a gristmill and a sawmill. The depiction appears to represent a mistake on the part of the cartographer, likely arising from the location of both aforementioned mills in close proximity. In fact, deeds from the period confirm that the gristmill and the sawmill continued to operate independently on separate tracts as they had under the ownerships of brothers Dr. Charles C. Ridgely and Samuel Norwood Ridgely, Jr. An 1876 deed from Samuel Norwood Ridgely, Jr. to his son James S. Ridgely, utilizes the same property description as that of the earlier deed from Samuel Norwood Ridgely, Sr. However, in the transfer of the Hayfield property to his son in 1876, Samuel Norwood Ridgely, Jr. retains a life interest in the, “use of, and proceeds of the said sawmill together with the use of the water and water rights belonging thereto, with the right of egress and ingress, to the use of the customers, hauling to and from the said mill”.
The Federal Census of 1880 lists Milton W. Shipley and two teenage sons as farmers in the third election district of Howard County. The next household enumerated is that of Anthony Liscum, a 40-year-old white male from New Jersey, listed as a miller. Living with Liscum is his 20-year-old son, also a miller, and Edward Fragans, a 21-year-old white male listed as an apprentice miller. The next household listed is that of Milford D. Shipley, farmer. It is highly probable that all three households resided on the 107 acre Hayfield tract of Milton W. Shipley, and that Liscum was the head miller at Shipley’s gristmill. The fact that the gristmill employed at that time three millers is suggestive of an increased productivity during the period. The Manufacturer’s Census Schedule for 1880 lists 16 “flour and grist mills” in Howard County, among which the mill run by Anthony Liscum ranks 12th in total value of all products generated by the mill. Shipley’s Mill is one of three gristmills listed in the third election district, along with one operated by Theodore Mottu and two operated by Columbus Isaacs. The Mottu and Isaacs gristmills are marked on the same 1878 map as the Shipley Mill, the former in the northern part of the district, and the latter in Isaacsville, in the southern part of the district.
The schedule indicates that Shipley’s Mill employed a single overshot wheel, five feet wide with a sixteen foot fall, operating at three rotations per minute, and powering two mill stones. The mill required two workers, both males over the age of 16, and operated 12 months out of the year. The mill has an average workday of 12 hours during the busy season from May to November. The mill produced the following: 200 barrels of wheat flour, 25 barrels of rye flour, 5,000 pounds of buckwheat flour, 70,000 pounds of cornmeal, 17,000 pounds of feed, and 2,500 pounds of hominy.
In 1890, Milford D. Shipley acquired his father’s 107 acre portion of Hayfield for $6,605. Shipley was by that time 36 years old and had been married to wife Mary Louisa for 8 years, with whom he had at least 9 children. Milton Shipley may have continued to live on the property, however, and operate the gristmill as he is listed in the 1900 Federal Census as a miller renting his home. The 1910 Federal Census describes Shipley’s principle occupation as farming. However, deeds indicate that the gristmill continued to operate under his ownership, despite the steady decline in profitability of east coast gristmills beginning in the late 19th century. In 1912, Milford D. Shipley subdivided his property and sold a 3/5 acre lot containing the mill, and another lot containing just over two acres and a dwelling to the north of the mill to an Alonzo W. Selby. The deed describes the Shipley’s Mill lot as, “now used and enjoyed by the owner of said Mill erected upon the land”. The adjacent sawmill, however, had ceased to operate, as indicated in a 1911 deed which references the “defunct saw mill race”.
There is no indication that Shipley’s Mill continued to operate after 1912. Instead, the mill property transferred with the dwelling immediately to the north, which served as a residence for individuals that were not millers or farmers, as they had been in the 19th century. Alonzo Selby (born ca. 1890) owned the mill property until 1924. He was listed in the 1920 Federal Census as an automobile salesman. James O. Miles (born ca. 1897), who owned the property from 1925 to 1946, was listed as a school bus driver in the 1930 Federal Census.
The gristmill continued to be referenced in deeds through the mid 20th century, but by 1958 the property is referred to as, “the mill site”, suggesting that the mill was defunct and no longer extant. The dwelling on the property remained occupied until the tract was acquired by the Maryland State Highway Administration in 2005.
The site was first identified in January of 2005 during a Phase I survey for improvements to nearby MD Route 32. The stone foundation of the mill and the opposing retaining wall of the wheel pit appeared to exhibit good subsurface integrity. The above ground portions of the foundations, however, were in poor condition and typically extended less than 30.5 cm (1 ft) above the surface, which was covered with a thick layer of discarded modern bottles and stone rubble. The visible stone foundations of the mill itself included the footprint of the mill, a low stone wall at the head of the wheel pit, and a high stone retaining wall along the side of the wheel pit opposing the mill. A channel diverting water around the wheel pit was also evident to the south of the foundation.
An artificial pond of indeterminate association was located east of the mill foundation at the toe of the low terrace. Probing of the wheel pit indicated that the base was unlined. Probing of the shallow race ditch indicated that it too was unlined along the sides and base. The mill race was clearly defined but exhibited moderate siltation and infilling. The remainder of the site extended into a grass field that included two apple trees and a shallow ditch that is likely associated with the mill. Remnants of the mill race were found to extend from MD Rt 32 (to the east) up to Terrapin Branch, a distance of approximately 165 meters.
Shovel test pits (STPs) were excavated at 10 and 20 m intervals within the site area and surface reconnaissance was carried out to locate various mill and raceway landscape features. The mill foundation was partially cleared of vegetation to permit some basic measurements and recordation of the exposed remnants.
Historic artifacts recovered during the Phase I survey included 2 creamware sherds, 1 pearlware sherd, 10 whiteware sherds, 1 ironstone sherd, 1 soft-paste porcelain sherd, 2 buff-bodied stoneware sherds, 5 pieces of container glass, 12 machine cut nails and 1 wire nail. In addition, two lithic artifacts were recovered during subsurface testing. Both artifacts were recovered from the plow zone horizon and lacked stratigraphic integrity. Based on these findings, Phase II testing was recommended if Site 18HO261 should become threatened by planned improvements to MD 32 or other developments.
In the spring of 2007, a combined Phase I and II project was carried out at 18HO261 and in the surrounding vicinity under the direction of the Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA). The Nixon Farm property (which included the site) was proposed for a wetland mitigation site for MD 32 improvements. Planned alterations included wetland creation, enhancement, and preservation, and forested floodplain preservation and enhancement. Phase I and II work was carried out in accordance with the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, and Maryland Historical Trust Act of 1985 which call for the consideration of archeological research when public moneys are expended.
The 2007 Phase I work in the vicinity of 18HO261 entailed the excavation of 111 STPs and a single 1 X 1 m test unit. STPs were excavated at a 20 m interval initially and then radial STPs were excavated in a cruciform pattern at 10 meters around positive STPs. STPs were a minimum of 40 cm in diameter and were excavated to a depth of at least 15 cm into subsoil or 1 m below surface if subsoil was not identified. In many cases, excavation stopped when the water table was reached and standing water was present within the STP. The test unit was placed in an area where subsoil was deeper than 1 meter. The test unit was then excavated 15 cm into sterile subsoil. Field data was recorded on standardized forms and in general field notes. All soils were sifted through hardware cloth.
Of the 111 STPs that were excavated, over half (59) reached standing water (at an average depth of 43 cm). A total of 34 artifacts were recovered during the Phase I work in this area, but not all of it from 18HO261. Those materials that were recovered from 18HO261 are included in the discussion below regarding the assemblage from the Phase II work. A new associated feature was also identified, a remnant of the headrace for the mill. The race crosses through grassy fields and wetlands before connecting with the Middle Patuxent River. It had clearly been destroyed in places by later construction activities, including the construction of MD 32.
Phase II work at 18HO261 in 2007 included the excavation of 13 STPs and 10 test units. STPs were excavated at 10 m intervals across the site, but otherwise followed the same methods of excavation as used during the 2007 Phase I component. Test units, as well, were excavated using the same methods. Field data was recorded on standard field forms and in general field notes. All foundation walls and above ground features were mapped and photographed. All soils were sifted through hardware cloth.
Test units were excavated in and around the observable foundation walls and within the grassy field to the north of the foundations. Five previously undocumented subsurface features were identified during excavations. Two of those features, Features 2 and 5, were consistent with rodent disturbance and were determined to be non-cultural. Features 1 and 4 consist of portions of the west and north foundation walls of the mill structure, which had previously been obscured by the ground surface. One feature, identified as Feature 3, was determined to be a builder’s trench for the retaining wall on the south side of the wheel pit.
Portions of a French burr millstone were also identified deeply buried within the western room of the mill foundation. French burr stones were quarried from a location near Paris, France and were regarded as the best stones for grinding flour. As a result of the American Revolution the United States had moved away from using English millstones and switched to the more efficient French stones. The United States became the largest importer of French burr stones, however by 1825 the quarry for the stones was becoming exhausted and whole millstones were more difficult to produce. After 1825, the stones were typically shaped into blocks and then pieced together to form the whole millstone. Eleven pieces of burr stone were identified at 18HO261, 7 of which form the outer ring of a wheel shape when pieced together. Blocks from the center of the wheel are presumably missing, leaving a large square hole at the center of the ring. One of the recovered stones appears to be encircled by an iron hoop. Millstones formed using French burr stones were often held together by an iron hoop. The millstone was partially immersed in standing water in the test unit and excavation had to be halted before the precise configuration of the millstone(s) could be determined.
Nearly 5,500 artifacts were recovered from the site during the 2007 excavations. The assemblage consisted of 669 activity items (533 miscellaneous hardware items and 136 miscellaneous household items), 2,563 architectural artifacts (39 square nails, 406 cut nails, 609 wire nails, 468 unidentifiable nails, 390 window glass fragments, 213 pieces of brick, 3 oyster shell mortar fragments, 248 other pieces of mortar, 1 wood fragment, and 155 miscellaneous architectural items), 40 clothing items (8 buttons, a copper alloy buckle, 2 copper alloy snaps, 3 clothing rivets and grommets, and 26 pieces of shoe leather), 962 kitchen-related artifacts (94 ceramic sherds, 525 container glass fragments, 50 bottle caps, 3 complete condiment cans, 104 metal jar lid components, 8 sardine can fragments, 2 sardine keys, 2 forks, 1 spoon, 54 bird bones, 45 large mammal bones, 13 medium mammal bones, 5 small mammal bones, 3 fish bones, 37 other bone or teeth fragments, 7 eggshells, 7 pieces of oyster shell, and 2 nutshells), 18 personal objects (mostly modern personal care materials), 1 tobacco-related object (a ball clay pipe bowl), 1 arms object (a brass shell casing), 1,197 miscellaneous objects (857 iron fragments, 65 pieces of melted glass, 56 pieces of coal, 21 charcoal fragments, 38 pieces of slag, 18 clinkers, 2 skeet fragments, 1 snail shell, and 139 other items) and 2 prehistoric artifacts (a rhyolite biface and a quartz flake). The ceramic assemblage consisted of 31 refined earthenware sherds, 1 hard paste earthenware sherd, 9 pearlware sherds, 5 porcelain sherds, 28 whiteware sherds, 4 redware sherds, 14 stoneware sherds, and 2 white granite sherds.
Phase II excavations at Site 18HO261 uncovered features including subsurface foundation walls and a builder’s trench. Portions of French burr millstones were also identified. The artifact assemblage included architectural remains and items associated with mid-20th century dumping episodes. Although the structural components of the mill were found to be largely intact, no intact occupational surfaces were identified during excavations. Due to the lack of site integrity, it was determined unlikely that additional excavations would provide answers to research questions on the local milling industry of the early 19th through early 20th centuries. The site was determined ineligible for listing on the NRHP and no further work was conducted prior to construction of the new wetland facilities.
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