The Old Mill At Cane Hill by W.J. Lemke

Painting of the Moore-Buchanan Mill at Cane Hill by 19-year old Henry Moore

 



 

Grist mills and saw-mills form an interesting chapter in the early history of Washington County. Next to churches and schools they played an important part in the development of civilization on the frontier. Very little has been written about the early mills, although such names as Blackburn, Stele, Woodruff, Rhea, Fresychlag, Hewitt, Pegram, VanWinkle, Pyeatt and other millers are familiar.

Many remember the mills at Cane Hill, Johnson, War Eagle, Farmington, Savoy, Evansville, Dutch Mills and elsewhere, but not much specific information about the mills and the millers is available. For example, Civil War maps show "Kidd's Mill" and "Pierson's Mill Pond" between Cane Hill and Clyde, but there is no other information available about these two early mills.

Legend credits Mark Bean with the construction of an early mill at the Bean's Spring between Cane Hill and Lincoln. This is strictly legend. Bean had been operating salt works in the Indian Territory at an early date (probably before 1826). When the Cherokee Treaty of 1828 compelled him to give up the salt business-- for which the Federal government reimbursed him handsomely -- he moved to Cane Hill -- actually three miles north of present-day Cane Hill.

Best known and best authenticated Cane Hill mill was the mill built about a mile north of the village by John Rankin Pyeatt and known before the War as the Pyeatt mill. In 1861 William S. Moore married John Rankin Pyeatt's daughter and the mill became the Moore-Pyeatt Mill. The mill undoubtedly suffered damage during the War, as did mills at Evansville, Dutch Mills, and elsewhere. But usually the mills were spared, since they were used by both armies as well as by civilian residents of the area.



After the War, William S. Moore replaced the machinery in his mill. It is the story of his trip to Cincinnati, Ohio, to buy mill machinery, based on his diary, that makes this newly discovered material of historical importance. The diary is in the possession of his granddaughter, Mrs. George L. Caldwell, a member of the WCHS.

After John Rankin Pyeatt died in 1895, the mill was still known as the Moore-Pyeat Mill until Walter Buchanan, W.S. Moor's son-in-law, went into partnership with him early in the 1900's. Then it became the Moore-Buchanan Mill and was moved to a location about one mile south of Cane Hill, where the old water wheel is still standing (1961). The mill discontinued operation about 30 years ago ( 1930's). It has since been dismantled and only the big mill wheel remains.

The old mill at Cane Hill was much photographed. The picture above is from an oil painting that hangs in the home of Mrs. George Caldwell at Avoca, Ark. The painter of the "primitive" was Henry Moore, father of Mrs. Caldwell and son of the pioneer miller, William S. Moore. The painting, in bright colors and with great attention to detail, has captured the spirit of pioneer days.

Young Henry Moore

A request to Mrs. Caldwell for information about the painting brought this reply:

"I can't find the date of building the mill in the painting, but from some notes that W.S. Moore made in a diary, it was remodeled in 1868. At various times the mill made flour and cornmeal, sawed logs, carded wool, and made caskets. The last two I never saw, but the four-cornmeal-lumber doings I remember quite well, because I was being forever warned to stay away.

"The mill in the painting was one mile north of Canehill on the west side of the road at the foot of the bluff. (The old Moore home can still be seen on the bluff--built by W.S. Moore's father-in-law and willed to W.S. Moore. The Moore house was the first frame house built in Cane Hill - so they say.)

"Water for the mill (steam mill) was pumped by ram from nearby spring through a trough on a trestle, which can be seen in the painting. (As a child, I thought this ram was a sheep and couldn't understand how a sheep in a ram-well could force water to the mill. I wasn't allowed to go near the place, lest I fall in.)

"The painting of the mill was made by my father, Henry Moore, when he was about 19 years old, in 1881. (My mother told me this.) He graduated from Cane Hill College in 1881, from Arkansas Medical College (Little Rock) in 1883, and attended Washington University in St. Louis in 1883-84, then practiced medicine in Cane Hill (under Doctor Welch) till he was married in 1886. He then went to Llano, Texas, and practiced medicine. He died there in 1897.

"Henry Moore painted a picture of Cane Hill College at about the same time that he painted the mill. Relatives tell me that my father would paint any and everything at the drop of a hat, but the paintings of the mill and the college are the only ones I have been able to find."

Additional facts about the old mill are furnished by Mrs. Clem Edmiston Pyeatt, widow of John Pyeatt, who wrote to Mrs. Nita Moore Caldwell as follows:

I am sending you a picture of the mill taken in 1909, after it was moved to the present location south of Canehill. I am pretty sure it was torn down and moved there in 1902. Rankin Pyeatt and Grandpa Henry Pyeatt ran the mill north of Canehill and it must have been started before the Civil War. Grandpa Henry married Tommy Yates and went to Sugar Loaf, near Fort Smith, and ran a saw mill there. 

 

 

 

 

"It was about that time that W.S. Moore went into the Canehill mill with Rankin Pyeatt. They bought wool and Mr. Al Horsman ran the carding machine and made yarn, with which the people knitted socks. I remember hearing them say that Grandpa Henry had a knitting machine and knitted all the families' socks.

"Old negro Mark McClellan fired the furnace for the boiler and was scalded to death there by an explosion of the boiler. Old Tom Diffebaugh (negro) hauled the Canehill flour to Neosho, Mo., and Okmulgee and Muskogee, Okla. in wagons and sold it to merchants and then brought the money back.

"Mr. Joe Davis was the miller there for a long time." (Editor's note: Mrs Davis says her father did not work there after 1905. -- WJL)

The land on which the original mill was located is covered by Preemption Certificate for 160 acres, issued to John Rankin Pyeatt on Aug 20, 1838. The mill property is described in more detail, in this paragraph from John Rankin Pyeatt's will, dated Sept. 23, 1886 and probated Feb. 8, 1897:

"I give, devise and bequeath to Wm. S. Moore, for the use and benefit of himself and his children by his first wife, Catherine Pyeatt, all of my right, title and interest in and to the following described land, which includes my homestead and the Mill Property, viz: A part of the southwest 1/4 of section four (4) and more particularly described as follows. It is bound on the west by the section line, and on the north by the quarter section, and on the east by a tract of land now owned by Sam Cole, and on the southeast and south by a tract of land formerly owned by Dr. Samuel McColloch and by a tract conveyed by me to Henry C. Pyeatt, and contains in all about sixteen (16) acres more or less, and is situated in township 14 north, of range thirty-two (32) west."

***The above is from the Washington County Historical Society's publication FLASHBACK Vol. XI, No. 4 November, 1961 pgs 1-3