Thursday, March 12, 2009

Dimmocks Mill

Well . . . wrong again. So I looked up Thomas D. Crain deeds to see whether the mill that he advertsied in the Hillsborough Recorder (see The Life and Times of Buck Taylor posted earlier this month) was on Bolin Creek, but it wasn't. First, it was not Buck taylor at all. It was his son John Taylor jr. Second, it appears to have been on the Eno River. The mill was best known as Dimmocks Mill and was located near the confluence of Seven Mile Creek and the Eno River (where Dimmocks Mill Road crosses the river today).

I figured that as long as I am at it, I might as well run out the title history on Dimmocks Mill, so here's what I found:

John Thompson to John Taylor jr. (1817 & 1820) Orange Deed Book (ODB) 21, pages 506&507
John Taylor jr to Thomas D. Crain & Alfred Moore (12/9/1823) ODB 21, page 508
Thomas D. Crain to Dr. J S Smith ODB 28, page 436
Francis J Smith to W H Brown (11/25/1847) ODB 34, page 122
Brown to Dickson & Parks - did not find connecting deeds
Thomas Dickson & David C Parks to Edwin Dimmock, Thomas B Thompson & Samuel K Scott (4/29/1875) ODB 43, page 294
I stopped here because I think the Dimmock family was the last owner before the mill closed. Plus I ran out of time.

Incientally, John Taylor jr. only bought part of the property in the two transactions with John Thompson, but one of the deeds mentions that the transaction is being entered into because John Taylor jr. wants to build a grist and saw mill. So there apparently was no mill prior to that time.

3 comments:

  1. Fascinating read, as my Great Great Grandfather was one of the owners! But WHERE exactly was the mill located? is there any trace? I bet the waterways have wiggled a bit since the mid-1850's. Dickson was Brown's son-in-law

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  2. Very cool post!

    The mill seems to have been located on the north bank of the Eno, on the west side of the current (1950s) bridge. On the south side of the river you can see the old road leading to it.

    The 1891 Tate map shows it and lists it as for sale. I've only seen one photograph of it, taken in the 1930s, when it was in rather rough shape.

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  3. Yes, exactly SR that is where it was. I believe that the broken remnants of the dam are still visible in the bed of the river just upstream of the Dimmocks Mill Road bridge.

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