Steam Power Water Power Grist Mills
March/April 1998
Jack C. Norbeck,
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Photo by Jack C. Norbeck, Nor-beck Research, Coplay, PA 18037-1712.
Jack C. Norbeck
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Norbeck Research, 117 N. Ruch Street #8, Coplay, Pennsylvania
18037-1712
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Frick 8 x 10 built in 1896. Owned by Steve Coldsmith of
Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. Engine is in front of Anderson Grist
Mill, Mercersburg, Pa.
On the front cover is Steve Coldsmith's Frick 8 x 10 built
in 1897 by the Frick Company of Waynesboro, Pennsylvania. Operating
the engine is Steve and his son at the old Anderson Grist Mill,
Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. Steve Coldsmith, owner of Coldsmith
Construction Company, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, used his
Freightliner truck to haul his Frick to the old grist mill. This
reenactment was the way grain was brought to the old grist mills by
horses and steam traction engines.
James Irwin, born in 1700, was a Scotch-Irish immigrant who came
to Pennsylvania in 1729 with seven other Irwins. The Irwins
operated mills, a bleaching plant and a smith shop in Ireland.
James Irwin in 1748 owned 540 acres in Peters Twp. just north of
present day Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. By 1766 he owned a mill
valued at three pounds 12 shillings and by 1769 the value of the
mill was 10 pounds six shillings.
During the Revolutionary War, Archibald Irwin's oldest son,
James, began to do commissary duty for the Western Army at
Irwinton's Mills. James Irwin organized pack horse trains to
carry flour, meat and other provisions to Pittsburgh for the
Western Army. James Irwin acted as an assistant commissary under
the appointment of Col. George Morgan, who was Commissary General
for the Western Army, whose headquarters were at Pittsburgh.
Large quantities of flour were made at Irwinton's Mill,
packed in kegs, each weighing about one hundred pounds, to be sent
west. Flour was brought in from Washington County, Maryland. Large
numbers of beef cattle were driven to Irwinton's plantation to
be purchased, slaughtered and processed in a recently erected
slaughter house, and sent to the Western Armies. James Irwin stated
that the Pittsburgh Quarter Master Department had four brigades of
pack horses each containing about one hundred horses, with one
horse master and twelve riders to each brigade, to carry provisions
west for the Army. The mill must have been busy and crowded, with
one hundred pack horses being loaded, and with their drivers and
horse master preparing for a trip over the mountains to
Pittsburgh.
Archibald Irwin died in 1798 and the plantation was given to his
youngest son, Archibald Irwin II. Archibald Irwin IPs oldest
daughter, Jane, married William Henry Harrison, Jr., son of the
General and President William Henry Harrison, at Irwinton Mills in
1824. Jane Irwin Harrison was mistress of the White House during
the brief administration of the first President Harrison in 1841.
Archibald Irwin IPs daughter, Elizabeth, married John Scott
Harrison. In 1889 Benjamin Harrison, the oldest son of Elizabeth
Irwin Harrison, became President of the United States.
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