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Downs Township History
Mills
McLean County, Illinois

(Transcribed by: Teri Moncelle Colglazier)

The timber here was good, and several mills were built early along the Kickapoo for sawing it into lumber. Before any mills were built, the hardy pioneers whittled out the first lumber with whip-saws, a process slow enough, and so gone out of date in this part. of the country that many of the readers of these pages will wonder what whipsawing is. The log to be sawed was first hewed to a partial square, so that it would remain in position and could be lined with a carpenter's line, and then raised upon a frame erected for the purpose, high enough for one of the sawyers to stand erect under it; a pit was dug deep enough so that the "man below," or pit-man, could do his work without inconvenience. The saw was not unlike a common cross-cut saw, except, of course, the teeth, which were set for rip work. One man stood on the log, and one underneath, the pitman being obliged to cover his face with a silk hankerchief, or some similar covering, to prevent the sawdust from ruining his eyes. The sawyers were obliged to follow the lines, and it required no small amount of skill to make very decent boards. Two hundred feet a day (board measure) was a big day's work for two men, about what a good mill will cut in ten minutes. Still, this is the way our fathers made their first lumber, and the way still practiced in boat-yards and in countries where timber is so scarce that there is no demand for mills. There were several mills put up on the stream; none of them lasted a great while, though. The difficulty was to get a dam which would stand the pressure of spring freshets and the rainy season. John Rice had a mill which, by constructing a long "race," had about a seven feet fall. It was built about 1840, and had the old-fashioned "flutter" wheel and gate. Hon. John Cusey ran this mill for some time. He says that he has sawed as high as four thousand feet in twenty-four hours, though this was far above the average capacity of the mill. It was customary to saw logs for the half, or small lots for 50 cents per hundred feet. Much of the lumber went to build Bloomington, and some of the houses stand there yet. In the absence of pine, which now forms every portion of the houses built, the buildings were made entirely of hard wood-home-sawed lumber. The clapboards and casings were of black-walnut, the frame of oak, hewn out, and the joints, braces, etc., sawed. No "balloon" buildings were built in those days. The floors were ash, and the lath either basswood or oak, split with an as by laying the pieces on a plank, so that the entire board would hang together when put on the wall, and separated to the required distances by driving wedges in until they were nailed. The shingles were of oak or black-walnut, shaved. Such shingles. if properly laid, would last forty years, or until they were, like the "Deacon's Masterpiece," worn out. Severe Stringfield had a grist-mill further down stream, near the southwest corner of Section a. It was built about 1831. It was about. 16x20, one story high, and had a water-head of about five and one-half feet. The stones were home-made, being cut out of the boulders found here on the prairie. They were little more than two feet in diameter, and did very good service. The lower one, since it has ceased to do service as a "nether mill-store," is serving its generation as a door-step for H. C. Bishop's house. What service it will next see is not for the historian to undertake to say. Elder Elijah Veatch put up a mill, about 1840, on the same stream ; and some genius, whose name even has departed from memory, started a pottery about the same time. It was not a success, however. It was on Section 17, on the Jacoby branch. [The History of McLean County, Illinois, Chicago: W. LeBaron Jr. & Co., 1879]

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