Rather a one-horse concern for our day and generation! and its capacity must have been about as one to one thousand, when compared with the mills of the present age. We should like to see how some of the people of the valley _now_ would relish bread baked from flour bolted through Leona muslin! It might do for dyspepsia; indeed, we doubt whether such a disease was known in the valley at so early a day.
The mill of which Mr. Bell speaks, although it may have been the first in his neighborhood, was by no means the first driven by the waters of the Juniata. William Patterson erected a mill, where Millerstown now stands, as early as 1758, which, however, was carried off by a flood a year or so after it was in operation.
The first mill in the Upper Valley was built on Yellow Creek, by the squatters, previous to the edict of the Penn family which destroyed the cabins; but in what year, or by whom built, or what its ultimate fate was, we are unable to say.
The second mill in the valley was built where Spang's Mill now stands, in Blair county, then considered a part of the Cove. It was erected by a man named Jacob Neff, a Dunkard. This mill was burned down during the Revolution by the Indians, but speedily rebuilt, and stood for many years thereafter.
The third was the "Tub" Mill, of which Mr. Bell gives a description. The term _tub_ was applied to it in consequence of the peculiar formation of the water-wheel. Nearly all the mills of those days were worked with a tub-wheel.
Directly after, a mill was erected by a Mr. Fetter, near where McCahen's Mill now stands, near Hollidaysburg. No traces whatever are left of it.
About the same period, two brothers, named Beebault, built a mill, almost the counterpart of the Minor Mill, at the mouth of Spruce Creek. Relics of this mill stood until within a few years.
The next was a small mill built by a man named Armitage, at Mill Creek, below Huntingdon.
Nathaniel Garrard built one in Woodcock Valley, about six miles from Huntingdon.
Another was built in the vicinity of Frankstown; another near where Martha Forge, in the Gap, now stands.
Cryder's Mill, above Huntingdon, was finished about 1776.
These were all the mills that existed in the upper end of the valley prior to the Revolution. Although small, they were evidently of immense value--people having sometimes been compelled to travel some forty miles to obtain their services. The vestiges of _all_ are gone, like shadows that have passed away, save the old Continentaller described by Mr. Bell. It alone stands, a relic of the past.