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The MIlls at Ephrata
Intro | Ephrata
| Milling | Baking
and Sawing | Papermaking | Oil
and Fulling Mills
"Fire!" was the cry heard one cold winter night
early in December, 1747. "Fire at the mills!" With buckets
in hand, the men and women of Ephrata rushed the scene of the blaze,
tossing buckets of icy water on the flames. When the sun rose in the
morning, a smoldering pile of ashes, and the remains of a scorched building,
marked the spot where industry had once thrived. The venture in milling
was only made six years before, and now it looked as if there would
be no more return on the investment. But this loss not only struck a
blow to the economy of the settlement, but also to it's survival. The
community diary reports that, "within four hours in this fatal
night, the whole flour-mill with three stones and a great quantity of
wheat were consumed; a skillfully built oil-mill, with stones the like
of which none before existed in America, besides a large store of oil,
and above 500 bushels of flaxseed. A complete fulling-mill with all
that belongs to it."
One of America's earliest religious communities, the Ephrata
Cloister in Ephrata, PA was founded in 1732 by German settlers seeking
spiritual goals rather than earthly rewards. Gathered in unique European
style buildings, the community consisted of celibate Brothers and Sisters,
and a married congregation of families. At the zenith of the community
in the 1740s and 1750s, about 300 members worked and worshiped at the
Cloister.
As with all colonial endeavors, mills and products of mills were central
to the prosperity and indeed survival of communities such as this. It
is in Ephrata that we have an excellent link between present and past,
and in the continuity of medieval European technologies to the colonial
American experience.
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