MARCH 29 2007 Frederick County Mills ACCOMMODATION FACTORY
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
MARCH 29 2007 Frederick County Mills ACCOMMODATION FACTORY ( ) David Foute advertised wool carding at Accommodation Factory, Dumb Quarter extended, Frederick-Town Herald, June 23, 1827. ADAMS FULLING MILL (9) Frederick Brown advertised wool carding at 6-1/4 cents per pound at the old establishment of Mr. Adams, about 2 miles south of New Market, Frederick-Town Herald, May 11, 1831, p. 4. He had offered fulling and dyeing there (Mrs. Adams’), Ibid., August 20, 1825. This was presumably the fulling mill shown on the 1808 Charles Varlé map on Bush Creek, 0.33 mile north of the present Weller Road, SE of Monrovia. The 1860 Bond map showed the Mrs. H. Norris wool factory, while the 1878 atlas showed Mrs. Norris with a grist and sawmill. ADLER ROPEWALK (F) A ropewalk operated by John Adler in 1819 was on South Market Street, Frederick. The building was occupied in 1976 by Federated Charities (See, Ralph F. Martz, “Richard Potts,” Frederick Post, May 11, 1976, p. A-7). ADELSPERGER MILL CO (5) This steam foundry and machine shop was listed in the 1860 census of manufactures with $14,000 capital investment and 25 employees; annual output was $5000 in castings and $25,000 in machinery. ADLUM STILL ( ) John Adlum advertised to sell two stills, 106-gallon and 49-gallon, Frederick-Town Herald, August 14, 1802. AETNA GLASS WORKS (7) Thomas Johnson purchased some of Amelung’s machinery and built a new Aetna Glass Works on Bush Creek, hauling sand from Ellicott City in empty wheat wagons. He later built another works on Tuscarora Creek, The Potomac, p. 10. Etna Glass Works appeared upstream of Wolfs Mill on Tuscarora Creek on Griffith’s 1794-1795 State map (District 2). The 1798 tax list showed the same glass house on Heatherlys Adventure (District 7) in possession of Thomas and Benjamin Johnson, previously charged to Thomas Johnson. The site was located during a Monocacy Valley archaeological survey directed by Maureen Kavanaugh at Mountaindale (Current Maryland Archaeology, July 1960, p. 2). 1 AHALT DISTILLERY (12) J. H. Ahalt was proprietor of this distillery, 4 miles from Knoxville. It had been established by the Honorable John Lee, M. C., as a flour mill. Later it was converted to a sawmill and in 1879 made into Ahalt’s whiskey distillery (MIID, p. 197). The 1880 census listed John D. Ahalt distillery with $6000 capital investment with 2 employees, 12 hp engine, and annual output of 7354 gallons ($6180). AHALTZ MILL (12) “Going through the dip of the millstream run below Mr. John Ahults [sic] gristmill, our General’s left front wheel crushed,” was a quote about General Robert E. Lee’s ambulance accident near Burkittsville in the forged Prather letter. See MHM, 82 (Summer 1987): 159. There was also a mention of Mountain’s Mill [same as Parker’s Mill?]. Timothy J. Reese proved that the letter was a 20th century forgery. AHALTZ SAWMILL (12) The J. Ahaltz sawmill was shown in the atlas on a branch of Broad Creek south of Burkittsville. ALBAUGH MILL (8) A mill 0.5 mile from Liberty had been mentioned in the Republican Gazette, November 26, 1802. The R. Michael grist and saw mill was on the Green Valley Road and Town Branch south of Libertytown per the 1860 bond map. The 1860 census of manufactures listed Edward Mitchell with $500 capital investment in a water mill that produced $600 in annual tolls. The dam washed out (Baltimore American, July 30, 1868, p. 4). The merchant grist and saw mill of Edward Albaugh was shown in the 1878 atlas south of Libertytown. Albaugh was an atlas patron and reported that he had settled in the county in 1868 and owned 28 acres. The 1880 census of manufactures listed the Edward Albaugh mill with $3000 capital investment, 1 employee, 2 run of stones, and 15 bu/diem maximum capacity. A 24-foot fall on Piney Creek, a branch of Linganore, drove a 16 hp, 4-foot broad turbine at 350 rpm. Annual output was 3500 bbl flour, 150 tons meal, and 137.5 tons feed ($27,160). The business was 12.5% custom. Albaugh ran the mill until the early 1900s and was succeeded by his son J. T. Sim Albaugh, who appeared in the 1902 directory and operated until about 1930. ALEXANDER SAWMILL (22) The 1850 census of manufactures listed John Alexander with $250 capital investment in a water-powered mill with 2 employees, 1 saw, and annual output of 2 $550 in oak and poplar plank. The 1860 Bond map showed J. Alexander sawmill on Broad Run and Marker Road on the slope of South Mountain. AMBROSE MILL (15) William Ambrose’s mill was mentioned in a roads document of 1749 (HWM, p. 437). Ambrose’s Mill and Abraham Miller’s Mill were mentioned in 1750 and 1761 road documents in Frederick County Judgments (M. M. Rice, That Was the Life, pp. 63, 226). The patent of the tract “Gap” mentioned Ambrose’s Mill as located on Captains Creek, a branch of Monocacy, in 1752 (Patents, Liber Y & S No. 7:210, MSA). A mill was advertised by Henry Kemp and Christian Kemp, by virtue of a deed from Henry Ambrose to Ludwick Kemp, deceased. The mill had 2 pair of stones, one of which was burr; also an old sawmill; about 16 miles from Frederick and 6 or 7 miles from Emmitsburg. Ambrose Mill was mentioned as a place name in an advertisement for a stray horse caught at Peter Shover’s plantation (Dunlop’s Md. Gazette, Baltimore, September 19, 1775). The mill was possibly on Owens Creek above Thurmont. AMELUNG GLASS WORKS (7) With the backing of a company of German capitalists, John Frederick Amelung established the New Bremen Glass Works on Bennetts Creek near Park Mills in 1784. Nearly 100 glass workers were brought from Bohemia and Thuringia to operate the works. The Maryland Journal, May 22, 1787, reported that new Bremen was complete. In 1790, a committee of Congress recommended an $8000 loan to Amelung. There were two main buildings, one for bottles, the other for table flasks and other flasks, both structures about 112 x 65 ft, each with melting furnaces; there were also stables, warehouses, and a mill. Archaeological work by Ivor Nöel Hume in 1963 demonstrated that the glassworks was a remarkably large stone structure 112 ft 9 inches by 65 ft 9 inches, with 10 ovens, two melting furnaces, and probably 4 other ovens. The building was apparently the reconstruction of one that had burned in the spring of 1790, Antiques, 85 (March 1964): 310. Date of the fire was May 6, 1790. Votes and Proceedings of the House in May 1788 contained a petition from John Frederick Amelung, glass manufacturer, noting his financial embarrassment and the “useful nature of the glass works (pp. 74, 79). Laws of Md., Acts of 1795, listed John Frederick Amelung among other debtors given relief that session. The site was also called Aetna Glass Works by HBCC, p. 402. However, The Potomac, p. 160, stated that the New Aetna Glass Works was built by Thomas Johnson with machinery sold off by Amelung. It also stated that an Amelung foreman, Kolenberg, purchased the second Amelung glassworks on Bear Branch. 3 William Jarboe Grove in HCM, p. 386, stated that the glass equipment was shipped to Westport in Baltimore City. Amelung’s effects were up for sale, including a tract near Frederick, part of Resurvey on Right and Good Reason, 560 acres, along with an extensive glass manufactory with necessary buildings and ovens Baltimore Federal Gazette, January 7, 1804, also Frederick-Town Herald, same date). The Laws of Md., Acts of 1808, Chapter 41, mentioned “the road in Frederick County to George Messicope’s blacksmith shop near the old glass works called New Bremen . road from Johnson’s Mill.” Matthew Brown offered to sell the site of Amelung’s old Glass Works at New Bremen on Big Bennetts Creek along with a 2-story sawmill on a 14.5-foot fall of water, a structure big enough for a carding and spinning house; also another 96-acre seat with a stone mill of 1 pair country stones, 1 pair of burrs, and sawmill. A good place for manufacturing, Federal Gazette, August 26, 1809. Fleecy Dale Factory started here about 1810. The site appeared as “Old Glass Works” on the present Reichs Ford Road on the 1860 Bond map. It was also called “old” on the 1808 map by Charles Varlé. John Pierce in his February 1980 talk on the Glass Works at the SIA noted that the works probably used a lime glass formula and used lead only when it was already present in recycled glass that was melted with the new batch. At most, the lead content was 13%. Amelung had purchased the Foltz and Kramer glass works before starting New Bremen. There was an air port built under the glass pot. Since 1962, the works had been exposed and unprotected. The Kohlberg glass works survived in 1980 in a subdivision and there were plenty of glass fragments. Amelung wrote that he had built housing fro 400 persons. Mr. Pierce thought that some of the workers could have gone to Catoctin where houses had a “North European” look. A Mr. Musroll, a self-trained archaeologist, who spoke at a 1977 conference of the MHT at Annapolis noted that a portion of Fleecy Dale Road was covering a stone foundation of a “link building” of the glassworks. At the Park Mills (the other glass site), a dwelling house stood on foundations which were stone covered with once- molten glass.