>> interested in american history tv? visit our website. you can see our upcoming schedule or watch a reagan -- recent program. lectures in history and more at c-span.org/history. >> c-span, created by america's cable television companies and brought to you as a public service by your cable or satellite provider. week, "american artifacts" takes you to historic places to learn what artifacts reveal about american history. rock creek park covers 1700 acres. we visited peirce mill, built in the early 1800's along rock creek.

>> i'm standing in front of peirce mill and rock creek park. this is one of the last vestiges of the rural past of washington, this mill is the only one of its type left. it was part of a way of life of farming and milling that happened in the early 1800's. the owner of the mill was a former quaker from pennsylvania named isaac peirce. he came to the washington area in the late 1790's and not a lot land.ght a lot of ultimately 160 acres along rock creek park. there was an old mill here that he bought, and he built this mill in about 1820. he had a farmstead here. there was a farmhouse, a building that may have been a distillery, a barn, an entire

farm area here. the mill, as i said, was built in 1820 and stayed in operation through almost the entire 19th century. the mill was subsumed into rock creek park in 1890 when rock creek park was founded, and he -- it kept operating for seven more years and finally ended in 1897 when the main shaft of the mill wheel broke, and that was the end of milling operations forever. back in the early 19th century, this was rural land out here. this was washington county. it was a separate legal jurisdiction from washington city, which is what we now think of as downtown. florida avenue was the old boundary street, the northern boundary of washington city. this was washington county. washington county was sparsely

inhabited. less than 10,000 people lived out here most of the 19th century, mostly farmers and large landholders, and farmers here grew all sorts of crops. a lot of wheat and corn and ride -- rye was grown for local use and for shipping along the east coast. mills were very important to this rural economy. because you had farmers that were growing grain, you had to -- they had to really come up with an efficient way of compacting that material for transportation to markets elsewhere, and essentially, that is what the miller's job was, to turn a crop of harvested grain into flour and meal and pack it into barrels so it would be commercially -- a viable commercial product. there were mills all along rock

creek that used the power of the creek to turn the millstones, and they served the local farmers, grinding their grain for them so they could ship it to market. there were a number of mills along the creek. peirce mill behind me is the only surviving one. there were several others in the district. just south of here was the adams mill that was actually owned by former president john quincy adams at point. lions mills the further down near georgetown. there were a number of mills north along the creek as well, so it was a thriving local industry, milling, in the 19th century. peirce mill, we believe, was typical of many of the mills in the early 19th century in that it used what was then a revolutionary, advanced system

wheels, andlleys, belts. this was a system developed by a delaware inventor named oliver evans and patented by him. he invented it in the 1790's, and it changed milling. there were lots of little mills like this throughout the eastern seaboard, and it was a very labor-intensive operation originally. millers had to have lots of ur grain into poo the mill and sift it out once it had been ground and pack it into barrels and so forth, and he came up with a way of automating almost all of that, using the same energy from the mill wheel that moved the millstones themselves, he used that same energy through various

cause and wheels and chutes and ladders almost to automate the entire process. this allowed basically a mill to be run by a miller and one or maybe two assistants. so it saved a lot of money. made the mills much more efficient, and really made a big difference. we believe -- we are pretty sure that peirce mill had that oliver evans type system in it and has been restored now to have that system. once the mill had ground all of the grain into flour and it was packed into barrels, sometimes the barrels would be given to the farmer who brought them usually. this was a so-called custom mill, a small mill that served local farmers directly as opposed to some larger mills that had more commercial roles. so the barrels would be given back to the farmer. the miller would take a percentage. it was fixed by law as his cut. that would be his payment rather than a payment in cash.

the farmer would take his grain and barrels and usually take it into washington city or down to georgetown for sale there, for distribution to other cities along the eastern seaboard, or, as i said, into washington city along one of these rustic mill roads that used to be out here in washington county. the main road that is now georgia avenue, for example, to the east from here went down and connected to 7th street and ended up downtown at the large center market on pennsylvania avenue. a big, bustling market that sold all sorts of produce and farm goods, and farmers would sell grain -- sell their flour down there. the mill stopped operations in 1897 when the main shaft broke. the mill was already on the

grounds of rock creek park. very quickly, the mill became a very rustic, scenic spot for gathering and recreation. it was seen as a romantic emblem of days past even at that time. there were frequent -- there were dances in the mill. people would come out and ride out in their carriages on weekends just to enjoy the park out here. the mill would be a gathering space for them. soon in the early 1900's, the mill wheel was taken down, and a big room was added on, and they created this teahouse. teahouses were very popular in the 1910's, they were a fad almost. so there was a tea house here, and again, this was a rustic type of bucolic entertainment

that people really enjoyed. and the teahouse was very popular. and continued in operation up until the 1930's when under the works progress administration, there was finally an effort to restore the mill back to its operating condition, put the wheel back and put the machinery back that had been taken out, so that is when the teahouse finally ended and the mill was first restored. it took the mill through the 20th century, went through a number of iterations of working and not working. it takes a lot of effort to keep a mill like this going. the wooden machinery wears out. the mill wheel itself wears out. it is out in the elements. it is made of wood.

the mill operated at times and went out of operation, and finally, in 1993 was the last time that the shaft of the mill wheel broke, and the mill went out of operation, and a large effort was undertaken through the early 2000's by a group called the friends of the peirce mill to get it restored once again. in 2011, it reopened and was is now again operating as a mill. >> hi, welcome to peirce mill. this is a almost 200-year-old gristmill. it grinds up grain into flour using the power of the waterwheel outside. farmers would be waiting outside, 10 or 12 wagons would be waiting. they would bring the family and .ave a picnic i

there was swimming and fishing. a lot of times, towns would spring up around where mills are. the farmer would bring the grain in. the miller gets paid a percentage of the grain for his services to bring it in and dump it down the receiving hopper, which is over here behind you, but you are on this floor here. this is the receiving hopper. you would dump the green down the chute. it is going to ride the grain elevator, which is little cups that go by about a cup a second all on a big pulley. it goes up to the top floor. cleaner tumbles it around gets rid of dirt and , bugs. from there, there is corn. you put it in the corn bin. goes down to the millstones, gets ground-up, and from there, it goes down to the basement. there's a little bit of a shaker sifter, and you have corn meal.

if you have wheat, you dump it down. it rides the elevator up, gets cleaned, goes into the bin and gets ground-up. that meal will travel the elevator a second time. there is a big round back. it has a rake that goes around, all powered by the waterwheel, spreads the meal out and dries it and eventually pushes it down to the bolter, a long sifting machine that separates out the fine white flour and the brand. when it is separated, it comes out to where the three chutes are, so you can take the stack or barrel, whatever you brought your grain in, and take your flour or bran. they did not have the sifter to separates different sizes of flour, so they had to use a bolts of cloth. prior to oliver evans inventing

his milling system, which you see here, which he did patent in 1795, you would have to carry 50-pound sacks of flour, corn, or wheat up three flights of stairs, dump it in the cleaner. it comes down, gets ground-up, and now does in the basement and you would have to scoop up all that meal and carry that up four flights of stairs into the attic, so they would pay young ke that around on the ground, spread it out and dry it, and then you had to scoop it up for a third time and taken to a whole other building to be sifted. with oliver evans' system, you could put raw materials here and get a finished product here, so he is the father of automation. peirce mill mostly ground wheat and corn here, but they would grind whatever the farmer brought in.

when the wheat would come in, it had to be dry and cleaned like this, and then it gets grounded to whole-wheat flour like this. to get what you're used to seeing for baking, you have to sift it, and that's where the bolter comes in. back in the day, they separated the bran, the outside brown part of the seed, because they did not like to eat it. they would feed it to the animals. we now know that is the healthiest part for you, so you would have healthy animals and you could eat those. there are three types of waterwheels that were used back in the day. currently, peirce mill used a breast shot wheel. the overshot wheel is when you live in high, mountainous areas, so you have water coming down, so you can use the push of the water and the weight of the water to turn the wheel. if you live in a mixed area,

like we do here, some high, some low, you can use a breast shot dam to do for the water to have more push when it gets here. it usually hits chest high and will turn the waterwheel backward. if you are out west where it is very flat, even if you have a dam, you will not get the water up very high, you will use the under shot wheel where the wheel catches the current of the water to turn the wheel. here we have the parts taken apart so you can see all the different parts. this is how the mill parts look when they are put together for milling. this is the bed stone. this is the bottom stone. it stays stationary. the top stone over here, this is the runner stone, the one that is going to spin around. you will have to use this stone crane here to lift it up and put it on. all the weight balances on that little pin right here. these bars sit in the stone so

when the outside wheel is going around, this is going around. you need the stone crane because eighs 2400one wa pounds. notice it has grooves carved in all these lines. that's on the top of the bed stone. the grouoves are passing each other and cutting it like scissors. people frequently think of stoneground flour as stone grinding together like this and crushing of the grain. if you do that, you get bits of rock in your flour and that's not very good for your teeth, and you also get a really stinky smell. so i asked the miller, if i smell that smell, i know my stones are touching, so i crank this lever around a few times, and it raises this a tiny little bit to get a very fine cut. it's also how you adjust for

different fineness. fine white flour is fine like baby powder whereas cornmeal is lumpy. people think when you put your nose to the grindstone, it means working hard. but it actually means pay attention. as the miller, i can make sure that my stones are not touching and you get much better flour. here are the mill parts are together for milling. this part is called the hopper. this is where you dump the grain in. this part here is called the horse. also called the chair because it has four legs. this part here is the shoe and it adjusts for how quickly the grain is poured into the eye of the stone. this part here is called a damsel, so when the mill is running, that part is spinning around and the shoe is bumping

up against it to keep a steady flow. you can adjust it like this if you want it faster or slower into the eye of the stone. i also learned the hard way you have to give it a good whack because it is in here by friction. if you do not, the vibration of the mill when it is running will vibrate this outcome of fall on the floor, and all 50 pounds of your corn will go, wham, right in the middle at one time. back in the day, they did build the dams father up the creek to divert the water into a channel to bring in water at a higher velocity to increase the power as it got here. that has been filled in since the early 1930's. when the park service redid the mill, they closed off both inns and put in a great recirculating pump that takes the water and puts it up in the head rate, which is where it would normally

come in from the creek. to get ready, we have to check and make sure everything is in the right place. the damsel is at 90 degrees. my shoe has been whacked so it will not dump all the corn at once. and now, we will dump some corn. ok. now you have to pad the stone. you have to add three pounds down there so the stones have plenty of corn to work with and do not rub up against each other. next thing we have to do is raise the top stone. right now, it is sitting down on the other stone like a break on

e on your bicycle, so we raise it up. it's going to break the friction . it starts moving slightly, and i'm going to add the water with this lever here. it lifts up the gate outside to lather water to go on the wheel and start running the mill. so here we go. raising up now. now we will add some more water. come on. there we go. drop the stone back down a little bit. not that much.

there we have it. there is the corn going into the eye of the stone. it gets spread out by centrifugal force. the grooves are passing each other and cutting the grain into a fine powder, and it's going to come out downstairs. ok, here we see the cornmeal coming out nice and fresh just off the wheel. this is how the miller check for -- checks for how finally the grain is ground-up. rub it in your hand. you also check to see how moist it is by clumping it. you get the bigger pieces to go into the barrel for the chicken, and this is the cornmeal down here. smell that cornmeal.

over here, you see the main shaft, which is a whole entire white oak tree that is cured for about 10 years before it is made into a mill shaft. you can see outside where it goes to the outside waterwheel, so the outside waterwheel is turning, the inside gears are turning. the large gear turns that gear that turns that gear that turns the millstone. >> the mill is really important to washington and to all of us now because it is this unique relic from the early 19th century, a piece of what life was like for people in washington county in the rural parts of this area, and there's nothing like it in washington.

it gives a real sense of the day two day type of technology that was used at the time. it is a way of life. it is a very direct, earthy, almost sense that you get from going into the mill and watching the wheels turn and smelling the grain and the wood and everything. it is a sense that you cannot really get anywhere else, and i think it is important for people to experience that and see that because it is so different from modern life, and it is important for us to have a sense of where we came from and how much life has changed. >> you can watch this and other "american