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I just recieved this in the mail this week,
Joe
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Thomas Crowder Moves to Tennessee
by Harriet Matilda Crowder Suite
The father of Thomas Crowder died in Montgomery County, North Carolina in 1833. In that year Thomas sold all his worldly goods, except what he could transport on horse back, and brought his family over a trail of the mountains to Tennessee. As they made that tiresome mountain trip on horseback. I think he came by the Cherokee Trail to Tellico Plains in Monroe County, Tennessee be cause he settled in that County and eventually located on Big Notchey Creek and built the "Old Mill" at an ideal site on that creek where it washes the foothills of the Smoky Mountains
He owned slaves and used them to build the dam and the mill which is still grinding wheat at this writing, May 1, 1947. I do not know in what year the mill was built, but it was use before the Civil War or war Between the States. The dam is built of flat slate rock which abounds in that section. I've often wondered if cement was used in the dam. It has withstood the "Spring Freshets" for which Notchey Creek is famous, all these years and is substantial looking.
Just above the dam a canal angles off through the field and arot (a route) to parallel the road which leads down the very gentle slope to the mill. To keep the canal level, the banks are built up with the flat slate rock - until when it reaches the mill, the wall is much higher than a man's head. From there the water was carried in a wooden fo'bay down by the side of the mill and to the back where the big overshot waterwheel was placed to turn the wheat and corn mill.
On the other side of the fo'bay was another big wheel just like the first. This was to operate the sawmill, cotton gin, and carding machine, which was housed in a building on that side. There were on portable sawmills in those days (early 1850) and the yard was always full of logs waiting to be sawed. The carding machine was one unit - low at each end, and high in the middle. The wool was fed in at one end and came out at the other in a long pencil-like roll - ready for the spinner to turn into thread on the old spinning wheel. This room was covered with oil - the floor was dark and oily looking. No one was allowed to operate this except Uncle Ute (Uriah), the little round shouldered bachelor uncle who lived with us. He also operated the Cotton Gin and the sawmill.
The Cotton Gin was also one unit - set in a wall with an airtight room at the back to catch the cotton as it flew out like a big snow storm. The cotton was free of seeds but had to be hand carded into rolls to spin or make "bats" for quilts. The cards were about a foot long with spines all over the inside, ( like a wire hair brush) and a handle on one side of each. These tore up the cotton and an expert could turn out perfect, soft bat free of motes and lumps.
The sawmill was located in a shed-open on the south and east sides. The floor of the shed was on a level with the top of the race. The logs were brought up from the yard in a little car which ran on a track built beside the race. Two men with log hooks would roll a log up to the car on two poles slanted from the ground to the car. The (water) power would be turned on - the tow rope would tighten and the little car would sail up the track to the floor and stop beside the carriage. The two men again used their hooks and rolled the log onto the carriage where it was fastened in just the right place to cut off the bark side and made a "slab". The (water) power was turned on and the saw began to fly so fast it was just a blur - the carriage, with the log, moved slowly up - and when the two met there was a sweet hum as the saw bit through the big log. When it came to the end the (water) power was eased and the carriage rolled back to make another start. Uncle Ute always operated the power level and bossed the sawing - to see that the gauge was set right.
I've watched the sawmill in operation for hours at a time, fascinated by its perfection. The hum of a sawmill still gives me a nostaigia - after all these years.
The water wheels at the old mill were the heaviest I ever saw. As I remember - they were 18 or 20 feet in diameter and 12 or 15 feet wide. the buckets had to be big and heavy to carry the volume of water required to turn the machinery. Even then, the corn and wheat had to be ground at different times. Most of the sawing was done in the early summer - when the small farmers of that section had eaten their wheat crop and the new harvest was not ripe.
About 1887 my father, Robert Parker Crowder, and Uncle Ute put in a roller mill to grind the wheat - but kept a rock to grind the corn. The corn rock has been renewed once since we moved away from the Mill in 1896.
About 1894 or 95 the wooden overshot wheel, that turned the wheat and corn mill, was getting so old it had to be renewed and, as a concession to progress - a turbine wheel was installed. It was put in a box-like concern which the water went through. It was placed at the side of the mill towards the front near the race and the rest of the fo'bay, not being in use, has fallen into decay and the water does not pour from the back in a mighty roar as it used to do in the old days, the drop for the water into the tail race must have been 25 feet.
The flat slate rocks for the dam and canal banks were taken from the little shaly hill - to the left and back of the mill. The hill has a hangover at the back where they took out the rocks. A hole was blasted out where the big wheel was set more than half down in it and the shaft ran from it under the mill to turn the machinery.
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NOTE:
The Crowder Mill was located at Hopewell Springs near Madisonville, Tennessee. As late as the summer of 1988 the dam for the mill on Big Notchey Creek was still in existence. The building, of course, is no longer there, but we understand that the wheel from the mill was used as part of the TVA Exhibit during the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville.
(Submitted by Jane D. Anen)
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