My friends - I had planned on moving over to Marshall County for today's data post, but, in lieu of that, I would like to go to Calloway County instead. I had indicated that I would, from time to time, bring to the lists some selection from Gordon Wilson's small book, printed in 1946, entitled, "Fidelity Folks", which contains some excellent local color on the area around New Concord, in Calloway County(which was "Fidelity" in his work). There is always interest in the history of Brandon's Mill in Calloway County, and there is a small section in the Wilson work about that old establishment. The text of that section is shown below. Tomorrow, we will, in fact, move into Marshall County. -B ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ "Fidelity Folks" By Gordon Wilson BRANDON'S MILL "Down toward the Tennessee River, a little to the left of the road, stood and had stood since the very earliest days of the Jackson Purchase as the home of white men, a water mill that became for us an institution. It had formerly been a pretentious thing, with a sawmill, a grist mill, a cotton gin, and a flour mill, all in one. Long before I grew up, cotton had ceased to be a farm crop in our area, and the old flour mill had got in bad repair, but the sawmill and the grist mill continued until the old structure was cleared away before the advancing waters of the great Kentucky Lake. On Saturdays the grist mill received all the attention of the miller, for people for miles around wanted the good meal that only water mills could grind. Formerly there had been several mills on Blood River, but all had disappeared by the time I was old enough to be interested in them. The old mill ponds remained as good fishing places, especially the one at Mill Jimmy's, just above the mouth of Panther Creek. Even after Bud Smith installed his steam-power grist mill in his shedroom at the blacksmith shop, many people preferred to take their corn the several miles tied Brandon's Mill, particularly the corn that was to be baked into hoecakes, or corn pones, or muffins. Going to mill was nearly as great as going to town. One was likely to see fewer people, but with these few he was thrown intimately for several hours, while his turn and those of others were going slowly through the mill. The typical turn was a two-bushel sack of shelled corn thrown across a horse's back and used as a saddle. After the grinding, the sack was still full even though the miller had taken out his eighth as toll. Riding home was easier, for a bag of meal makes a good saddle. A more pretentious trip was made in a farm wagon, when two or three neighbors sent their corn by some half-grown boy. With a half dozen sacks tied down to be ground, we could count on staying all day. There were many things that one could do at the mill. It was always great sport to watch the miller with his "thumb of gold," as Chaucer says, feel the meal as it poured out and adjust whatever machinery was necessary to keep the meal the same texture that his practiced fingers knew was just right for his customers. Tiring of watching the miller, we could wander over the rambling old millhouse and wonder at the uses of the abandoned machinery of the cotton gin and the flour mill. We could go out on the catwalk that connected the grist mill side with the sawmill side and watch the water racing over the dam, carrying, in the fall, whole fleets of colored leaves. Sometimes the miller would let us take the canthook and push drift over the dam. Sometimes, also, we imagined ourselves raftsmen or flatboatmen and used the logs and brush to illustrate the best methods of reaching New Orleans with our rafts or arks. Inside the mill we played Odd and Even with grains of corn or ate raw meal with a zest that only growing boys have. Since I have been thoroughly grown, I have tried to eat raw corn meal and have decided that I had as well starve as try it again. In summer we waded in the shallow water below the dam or went in a-washing around the bend where we could not be seen, for in those days bathing suits had not yet arrived. The mill always drew us back, as machinery in any form always fascinated us. The old mill had one thing that I wish I owned, a toll cup made into a bucket-like shape by cutting off a section of a cypress knee and fitting a bottom into one end. This cup was used so long that it was worn as smooth as some oriental wood. Another thing that I would like to have is the two original millstones, which had been cut out of the stone right near the mill itself. Two men, so said tradition, had spent the better part of three months in quarrying the stones, rounding them off, and chiseling in the burrs. Later on, millstones from the East took the place of these primitive ones. All of my childhood they were piled up to form a stileblock for those who brought their turns of corn on horseback. A cousin of mine has them now at the county seat, in a slap-dash museum of things that pertain to the earlier days in our county. The fishes that swim over the site of the old mill will be too dumb to know what a great part that area had in keeping us supplied with food and lumber and cotton in the older times. I am a little afraid that only a very few creatures like me will even stop to shed a tear of remembrance for a passing institution like Brandon's Mill." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~