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Historic Burwell Morgan Is Hardly Run of the Mill
Historic Burwell Morgan Is Hardly Run of the Mill
By M.J. McAteer
At the Burwell Morgan Mill in Millwood, flour is made just the way it was when this country was in its infancy.
Inside the dark and lofty old building, now a living museum run by the Clarke County Historical Association, the majestic turning of a two-story-high waterwheel powers the rotation of grindstones that crush whatever the daily grain might be.
Burwell Morgan’s milling schedule includes all colors of corn--red, white and blue and the less patriotic yellow--along with buckwheat and rye and other locally sourced cereal crops.
Shafts spin, gears mesh, wooden trays judder and clatter, and hoppers fill and empty as the grain whooshes through chutes between the milling stages. On the ground floor, reached via a laddersteep staircase, the newly ground grain is routed to a sifting table, where a gyrating screen noisily separates the meal from the crushed hulls, and the air is turned white with flour dust.
Jim Avis of Washington, D.C., who is manning the sifting table one recent afternoon, wisely wears a mask. He’s been a volunteer at the mill since 1995 and is now 87. “I’m a fixture,” he said.
At a table nearby, Nolan Chastain, 17, of Stephens City is bagging the flour that’s come from the sifting table. She’s the third generation of her family to volunteer at Burwell Morgan and remembers catching crawfish in the millstream when she was little, while her mother and grandfather helped out inside.
Avis and Chastain are part of a loyal cadre of 25 to 30 volunteers, and that kind of robust support is no run of the mill situation, said Nathan Stalvey, director of the historical association.
Burwell Morgan’s teenage contingent of volunteers, in particular, is the envy of other historical sites, he added. Along with operating the sifting table and bagging the grains, mill volunteers give tours, tend the grounds, lard the wheels and gears and generally run the place.
Being able to learn from the older ones and share the enthusiasm of the youthful ones--the youngest is 14--is the favorite part of Stalvey’s job.
“I have to make sure that love of the mill is passed on to the next generation,” he said.
The mill dates to the early 1780s and got its name from its founders, Revolutionary War General Daniel Morgan and local landowner Nathaniel Burwell, whose grand estate in Millwood, Carter Hall, still stands. Labor on the impressive stone and timber structure came courtesy of Hessian prisoners of war who continued to be housed in a detention camp in Winchester long after the end of the Revolutionary War.
After successfully operating for about 250 years, the mill’s story was a sadly familiar one: It fell behind the times, closed in the 1950s, and neglect and disrepair ensued. But in 1964, the dilapidated property was donated to the county historical association, which completed its restoration six years later. Other than a time in the ‘90s, when a new water wheel of Peruvian mahogany was being installed, it has operated every year since, even during Covid.
These days, the mill processes about 3,000 pounds of grain annually, instead of the 3,000 pounds it once handled in a single day, said Stalvey. Some of those pounds go into two-pound sacks, like the ones Chastain was filling, to be sold on site ($6), as well as at farm markets and select stores.
The mill’s preservative-free, stone-ground buckwheat reputedly makes delicious pancakes, and its red cornmeal, tasty grits. Some of the mill’s barley output also is put to livelier use in Morgan Mill Porter and Burwell Stone Lager, both products of Broken Window Brewing Co. in Winchester.
The mill has no heat, so it’s closed during the coldweather months. It will reopen in April with its annual spring art show, and its first grinding day will be in May.
Burwell Morgan’s pretty grounds, designed with the help of the Garden Club of Virginia, have tables that are open to picnickers, and lots of people grab some goodies for an al fresco lunch from the Locke Store, a gourmet grocery, deli and wine shop that is right across the street. The Virginia State Arboretum is just three miles away, making it easy to turn a visit to the mill into a day in the country.
Details: The Burwell Morgan Mill, 15 Tannery Lane, Millwood is open from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturdays, noon to 5 p.m. Sundays-Friday, starting with the annual spring art show that runs from April 20-May 5. Grinding will take place on Saturdays on Oct. 12 and Nov. 9. Donations are encouraged, but admission is free.
