Hi, all. I was looking up a name for someone in my book about Buchanan, The Real McCoy, by Norma Stevens, and noticed that a couple of other names which had come up on the Berrien lists recently were also mentioned. I am therefore going to transcribe the entire, somewhat lengthy, section from pages 21 & 22 below: The Mill Race During the summer of 1857, when men around the blacksmith shop and the Hamilton-Day mill were chewing straws and talking politics...when words like "Black Republican" and "Abolitionist" and "Copperhead" were starting to be heard...when the town had an uncertain air even as the children of the village happily waded in the marsh behind the Day homestead and unconcernedly sucked on the sweet flag roots they dug there...through such a summer, a ship was bound from England carrying William Bainton from his home at Walton Abbey, Yorkshire. Bainton, a miller by trade, was migrating to Michigan for the purpose of starting a flour mill in the new land. Upon arriving in Buchanan, the young man immediately set about obtaining water rights on McCoy's Creek. With the help of a Mr. Beach, hired workers, and teams of horses and oxen, Bainton excavated the millrace, thus dividing the creek in the western part of town, and built the headgates down behind the site of the present high school to control the flow through each branch. By 1858, the mill race and the mill (the present Co-ops mill) were near completion. Bainton, according to his grandson Kelsey Bainton, had made several trips back to England before settling in Buchanan, bringing on his final crossing "a roll of stone". These mill stones from the quarries of England, five feet in diameter and two-and-a-half feet thick, were brought through the St. Lawrence, around through the Great Lakes and down Lake Michigan, and up the St. Joseph River to their new home on McCoy's Creek. Although very little of the original mill and falls remains today, the first Bainton mill (later the Pears mill) is the only one to survive to the present, all others having been destroyed by fire during the past hundred years. William Bainton operated the mill until his death in 1865; and in 1868 it was taken over by a family friend and fellow Britisher, William Pears. He in turn was succeeded by the firm of Pears and Rough. At first the mill was powered by a big "breast" wheel, 14 feet wide, over which the water dropped 16 feet. The mill was known in the early years as The Rural Milling Company, and the product bore the brand name of "Diadem Flour". For years the entire output of this mill was shipped to England, homeland of both millers, Bainton and Pears. The mill had a maximum daily production capacity of 100 barrels of flour weighing 196 pounds each, the manufacture of which required an intake of 500 bushels of wheat daily. Barrels for the flour were made in the local cooper shops operated by Joe Voorhees, Jay Glover, and Nicholas Arney. At that time there was an alley running south from Front Street to the mill, just opposite the intersection of Main and Front. The building which formerly housed the Hollywood Theatre now stands on the former alley entrance. A bridge was built across the rail race below the wheel for farmers to drive through the alley and across the bridge with their loads of wheat. After the death of William Bainton, his young sons William F. and Charles L. Bainton determined to carry on the traditional family trade, and in later years built the large Bainton mill farther downstream, which continued in business until 1924. This mill will be discussed in a later chapter. * * * * * * * The full title of the book is THE REAL McCOY, The Story of a Creek and Its Town. It was written by Norma Stevens, and "Printed and Published 1975 by Record Publishing Company." If anybody needs a hard copy, let me know. Kathy in Nebraska