Continued from last week, from "Backroads of Barren County" "A short distance below the WILKINSON Mill seat, there is one of the best mills in Barren County. The creek runs comparatively strait from the Wilkinson Mill seat to within a few yards of where the mill house stands; it then took a turn and run around a body of land,probably a hundred acres, and came back within a few yards of where it made its turn above, allowing an excellent fall for all purposes. The Mill house is built on a moderately high bank, above high water mark and a race cut from the creek above the mill below which in a good stage of water furnish enough power to run two or three sets of buhrs and a circular saw for cutting lumber. When I first heard of this mill, when a boy probably of the early forties in the last century, I heard it spoken of as Bowman RITTER's, who was the father of the late D B RITTER, and sold it to his son in 1856 who was a first class millwright and improved it and kept it in first class condition until his death in 1877. After his death, the mill was run several years at the instigation of his wife. At her death it fell into the hands of her son Fishburne, who like his father, was a natural millwright, and kept it in a high state, of up-to-date improvements and sold it several years ago for $8000. I don't remember who the present owner is. "A grandson of David Boatman RITTER, Sr. has furnished a record of the RITTER family which I will insert here, he commences with: "The subject of this sketch David Bowman RITTER, Sr. was born on the 18th of March 1787. Where he was born I do not know. Some say he came from Pennsylvania, while others tell me he came from Virginia. Be that as it may he was of German parentage and the name RITTER is a German name signifying Knight. Neither do I know where he first located, but I do know that he lived in various places in Barren County. "He was married three times. Who his first wife was the record fails to show. To the first union was born one daughter: Emily, who grew to womanhood and married one by the name of GREEN. They later migrated to Indiana; to them were born two sons: David GREEN and James GREEN, whom the writer of this remembers seeing once in early boyhood. Where they are living now I don't know; neither do I know where their children are if they had any. "D B RITTER, son of his second wife, married Mary Ann FISHBURN; to them were born eleven children, as follows: Henry, born December 23, 1811; Peter born April 15, 1814; Jemima born October 1st 1815; Susan, born August 18, 1817; Elizah, born September 6, 1819; Martha, born December 13, 1821; John, born June 12, 1824; David B Jr, born July 6, 1826; Elizabeth, born May 14, 1828; Jacob, born August 19, 1830; Pauline born January 18, 1834. "The oldest, Henry RITTER, married and moved to Missouri, sometime in the fifties. He was a carpenter by trade and sometime during the Civil War as the history of the case goes he had been at work at his trade away from home and on coming home the guerrillas of whom the country where he lived was full, came to his house and demanded of him his money he had received for his work, and on being refused, they told him they would kill him if he did not produce it, but he still refused them, and they took him by force from his house and killed him and threw his body into a sinkhole. But they did not get the money they were after, as he had hid it where they could not find it. What became of his widow, I am not able to tell." to be continued next week. Sandi SCKY Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index?list=south-central-kentucky Barren Co Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index?list=kybarren Sandi's Puzzlers: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~gensoup/gorin/puz.html