Visit a Working Grist Mill

A pre-Civil War grist mill is open for visitors.  The mill will soon hold the status of being the only pre-Civil War era working grist mill in Rockingham County. Located on Brenneman Church Road in the community of Edom (north of Harrisonburg), the mill is open for visitors by appointment and during occasional open houses.  It is the one of the few grist mills in Rockingham County to have survived the 1864 burning of General Sheridan's Civil War Campaign, and the only one that retained operable French burr stone grist mill equipment.

Abraham Breneman built the brick and limestone grist mill around 1800. George Shaver bought the mill about fifty years later. Versions as to how the mill was spared during Sheridan's raid vary, but the most documented story credits Mrs. Shaver with saving the mill.  Mr. Shaver was ill at the time that, according to historical reports, soldiers set a neighboring barn ablaze.  That fire spread to the mill.  When Mrs. Shaver realized she couldn't extinguish the blaze, she "blew on her horn" to summon help.  A neighbor, Jacob Wenger, and his hired man saved the mill.  A charred board in the basement gives credence to the story that the mill was set ablaze at some time during its history.

Another less documented story suggests that sympathetic Union soldiers spared the mill upon learning its owner was ill and unable to defend the property. They set fire to the mill, as they were required, but left in a hurry to allow Mrs Shaver to extinguish it. Both stories may be true.

The four-story mill has a limestone foundation, and basement and attic storage space.  The two main floors are of Flemish-bond brickwork, carved beams and beaded floorboards are original 19th-century workmanship.

Originally, a quarter-mile long race channeled water from Linville Creek to the water wheel, providing the energy necessary to operate the gears, wheels, belts and other machinery that ground wheat and corn into flour and animal feed.

J. Howard Turner bought the mill in 1933.  After he married, he raised his family in the mill house and supported them by operating the mill. In his later years he continued to operate the mill because he wanted to preserve the mill as a working grist mill for historical and educational purposes.  He operated the mill, equipped with three original burr stones until 1988, the year of his death.  One of the 48-inch sets of stone was used to grind corn and the other wheat. The 24-inch burrstone ground buckwheat for his famous buckwheat flour.

The mill was placed on the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Land Marks Registry in 2006.

Now, more than 100 years after the Civil War, the mill is once again under attack – this time by the elements.  Members of the Valley Brethren-Mennonite Heritage Center, which now own the mill, are racing to raise funds to rebuild the three story south wall which is bulging outward from cracks that zigzag across and down to the foundation.

The Heritage Center has raised and spent $70,000 to date on the mill and is now raising $110,000 to rebuild the south wall and do repairs on other exterior areas in early 2009. Refurbishing the Fitz water wheel and restoration of water flow from Linville Creek will come later. In the meantime the 24" stone is being motorized to demonstrate grinding.

The Cabell Foundation of Richmond, which supports historic preservation and restoration, is matching donations up to $30,000; and A Friend's Helping Hand, a private foundation, has offered an additional $10,000 of matching funds.

The mill is located on Brenneman Church Road,  two miles west of Route 42, about two miles north of Harrisonburg.  For more information or a personal tour, contact Mill Preservation Chairman Ken Weaver at 833-1449 or e-mail him [e-mail].