THE SITE
The Mill
"The mill in its original state stood three stories tall, its topmost story of wood, which has since been taken down and roof not replaced. The remaining structure is of stone masonry. This is laid up with large blocks of rubble stone, more or less coursed, on those elevations conspicuously seen from roadside. The flume-side wall and rear wall are somewhat less finished, containing an assortment of stone sizes. All four corners have quoining. The wall against which the waterwheel was housed has been modified over time, with different siding visible in old photographs. Today we find that a central segment of the masonry wall is gone, replaced with cinderblock and set back slightly from the plane of the remaining wall extending from both corners. The reconstructed section represents about a third to one-half of the wall. This wall is embanked to provide a course for the race. It has a water table that projects a little above grade level."
The Hydrosystem
"The mill is at a much lower level than the race, which enters from the rear. The embankment held back by stonework is as high as the second story of the structure... The race flows by gravity, but with the laying out of Rockaway Road in the 1840s the race was directed to flow under it in a culvert at the point of encounter.
The tail race exits below grade in a culvert under Taylor's Mill Road (opened in 1839) and then travels a short distance—a few hundred yards—on the northerly side of the miller's house before returning to the creek just beyond the site of the former bridge-crossing.
The surviving components of the system consist of dam, head race, flood gates, leaf strainer, penstock, and tail race.
At a point clocked at 8/10ths of a mile west of the mill building, the race begins with the dam built to divert water from the stream. It has been reconstructed with concrete walls. The race itself can be clearly followed, visible as a deep wide V impression in the flood plain. The 19th-century road was laid out close to its edge. The stream for some distance swings northerly and disappears from view. As creek and race begin to converge again, flood gates are found on the race. These are built up with stone and concrete blocks."
The Setting
"The siting of the mill at this intersection is somewhat curious, and even confusing, given the topography. The U.S. Geological Map will show the meanderings of the North Branch of the Rockaway Creek.
At the time the mill was opened, neither of the roads now making the intersection were in existence. There was but one road to the mill, which branched off from the main road from Potterstown Village north to the Rockaway and followed a right-of-way through a farm to emerge a few hundred feet south of the complex."