Thoughts on the Virginia Grist Project
In the northern parts of Virginia, virtually every small town began with the building of a small, rustic gristmill. Since their settlement in the 18th Century, lowland valleys of northern Virginia counties were known for their rich soil, very capable of growing grain crops like wheat, corn, rye, and barley. Soon, enterprising pioneers like Asa Janney, George Mercer, Burwell and Morgan, and many others began building gristmills where the grain could be turned into meal and flour for local consumption. Many of these early gristmills were small log structures with an external wheel driven by a reliable current of stream water. Vibrant towns soon grew up around the gristmills: the 1740s “Janney’s Mill” became the town of Waterford, Richard Brown’s 1730s mill became Taylorstown, the 1765 “Mercer’s Mill” became Aldie, and around the 1785 Burwell-Morgan Mill sprang the small town of Millwood.
Grist milling in Virginia became highly profitable during the 1800s. Markets for Virginian meal and flour expanded far beyond America. To meet demand, Virginian millers built grand stone and frame structures to replace the small log-built mills, and incorporated state-of-the art technologies for grinding grain. Those were the days of sophisticated double overshot water wheels (Aldie Mill), interior water wheels (Burwell Morgan Mill and George Washington’s Grist Mill), and elaborate systems of chutes and mechanical augers to move and package the grain and flour. Eventually, they replaced the huge old millstones with more efficient steel roller machines, and destiny eventually made these small town mills obsolete.
“Virginia Grist” celebrates the role that small town grist milling played in northern Virginia’s history and its early agrarian economy. When you see these quiet images, try to feel the busy-ness that once took place here. Contemplate the hardships and dangers of working around noisy, giant, moving machines in dimly lit spaces. Imagine the mill-workers putting in long hard days here and returning to their families at nightfall, exhausted but proud. And consider the community created by the Mill, very often the town’s center of social and economic activity, where mill families all had something in common: something extremely important to their very survival and prosperity. I hope you enjoy the experience.
I created the images in "Virginia Grist" over the course of 18 months ending in 2014. That adventure took me to 5 historic sites that had, in varying degrees, benefited from past restoration projects. I found that each mill had its own story to tell. Each was filled with a sense of mystery hidden within the dark shadows; mysteries they were eager to share, if we only had the curiosity to stop and listen to them. I felt it important to tell their stories in black and white, and used larger format film to capture the full depth of them.
Large scale photographs from the Virginia Grist Project have been exhibited at Aldie Mill (2013), The Historic Balch Library, Leesburg (2014), and at the George Mason University Enterprise Center in Leesburg (2015). I am eager to exhibit them further, because I know that with each showing, there is an opportunity to advance the preservation of these great spaces, and an opportunity to educate others about the ways and means of our early American culture.
J. Riley Stewart, Leesburg, Virginia, 2015 (all images copyright J. Riley Stewart)