Along the long and twisting miles of shorelines of the creeks that feed the Nanticoke River there appeared, as early as the seventeenth century, the technology to feed the multitudes - the water-powered mill. Dozens of gristmills at one time operated in the lower Delmarva Peninsula, but one by one they disappeared, both operationally and physically. Today, only one such structure remains - the mill at Double Mills, less than two miles east of Mardela Springs, Maryland on Barren Creek. Situated on almost three acres on the north side of what was a thirty-acre millpond, the building has been inoperative and deteriorating since a major winter storm washed out the road across the pond and the mill dam in 1979.
The first mill on the site probably was constructed some time in the last half of the 1700s, although the exact date is undetermined. The mill site was part of a 95-acre tract patented to Benjamin Venables Sr. in 1766. Later, the will of William Venables, son of Benjamin Venables Sr., March 17, 1775, refers frequently to "my mills and mill pons [sic] but does not identify them by name. The will of his brother, Capt. Joseph Venables, (commander of Barren Creek Company of Md. Militia during the Revolutionary War), filed Dec. 15, 1788, and probated on "the 29th day of December 1788, refers repeatedly to the "Middle Mill Pond" and the "Middle Mills," the will also refers to a "sawmill known as Gabey, or the Upper Mill.on the north side of main branch of Barren Creek," and "my sawmill and grist mills commonly known by the name of Lower Mills.on the South Side of Barren Creek." There is no question that the Middle Mills are the Double Mills as subsequent land records positively identify them as such.
Ownership passed from Captain Venables to his nephews Benjamin and Richard Venables and niece Nancy (Mrs. Jesse) Wilson [children of William]. In February 1798 Benjamin sold his interest to Jonathan Waller or Walter who had apparently married in to the Venables family. The same day Richard also sold his interest to George Wilson Jr., referred to it as "the Mills called and known by the name of Double Mills. There is no record of Nancy's dispersal of her part of the mill.
During the next three decades the mill apparently prospered as the farmers in the area found it convenient for their own use and for commercial purposes. In 1829 Jesse Walter, most recent owner, died, and in the settlement of his estate a claim was registered by one Dr. William Williams. Williams appears to have been as much speculator/entrepreneur as physician. To settle his claim for a loan of $1,339.14 to Walter, Williams took possession of the mills in May 1829.
Williams owned the mill for the next fourteen years, although it is doubtful that he operated it. The miller, at this date of writing, remains anonymous. In 1843 Williams found a buyer, William Handy. Handy purchased the tract, "Venables Pretention," and the mills for $100.00. Two days later, Handy sold the property to Levin and Joseph Wright for an unspecified amount, though the Wrights took two mortgages for a total of $731.32. Handy as indicated in a later deed, kept one-third of the property, however, selling the Wrights two-thirds. Handy sold his third to William F. Wilson in 1846. Levin Wright and wife Elizabeth sold his share to his brother Joseph and wife Sarah ten years later, so that by 1856, on the eve of the Civil War. Wilson and Joseph Wright were the only owners.
The people of the lower Delmarva peninsula were decidedly split in their loyalties during the Civil War. Union forces were camped in nearby Salisbury for much of the war, and troops once more were customers for local foodstuffs. However, the war also bought on something of a depression in many quarters. Accordingly, in 1863 Joseph Wright and wife Sally sold their 2/3 of mill, lot and house, and one-sixth part of said Mill, lot and house to William F. Wilson and Noah H. Howard for only $166.00. Since Mr. Wilson had previously purchased a one-third interest in the Mill, he and Mr. Howard were now sole owners.
The next year Wicomico County was formed out of Somerset County, reflecting the growth and prosperity in that northwestern part of the lower Shore. This also coincides with an increasingly complex trail of ownership in Double Mills. The Wilson/Howard partnership began to dissolve on October 28, 1869, when William F. Wilson, and his wife Elizabeth sold their "one-third of the property to John H. Bacon and Trainor Bounds for the sum of $2500.00. On January 5, 1870, Train A. Bounds and his wife sold their interest in the property to John H. Bacon. This Bacon who was a prosperous merchant and landowner in the Barren Creek District at this time apparently tried to purchase the Double Mills outright. However, he succeeded only in acquiring a one-half (actually a 7/15) interest in the Mills. Apparently Noah H. Howard, Wilson's partner, must have owned a two-thirds interest in the Mills and this interest passed on to his heirs who each inherited fractional portions of Howard's interest. This supposition is buttressed by these transactions: November 11, 1876, Robert W. Howard sold to John H. Bacon for $375 his 1/20 of the Mills; March 7, 1877 Noah J. Howard and wife Rachel sold for $400 to John H. Bacon their 1/12 part of the mills. From this point on until Samuel Wilson purchased the Mill property in its entirety the details of ownership are rather sketchy. By 1880 Levin W. Wright owned a fractional share of the Double Mills property - probably a 1/3 interest - which was left to his sons Levin Edward Wright, Joseph A. Wright, and John A. Wright.
In 1883 Samuel P. Wilson, a miller moved to Mardela Springs from Laurel, Delaware. For the next six years he engaged in a milling and mercantile business at Double Mills, and in 1889 began buying up the many fractional shares held by heirs of Noah Howard, John Bacon, and Levin W. Wright. In April 1899 Wilson bought 1/18 interest in the Mills from the estate of Gordy Joseph Howard, and in May bought 1/2 interest in the Mills from the estate of John H. Bacon. In 1909 he bought 1/6 interest from Azariah Howard and others; another 1/6 interest was bought from the heirs of L. E. and Jennie Wright in April 1919, and a 1/15 interest from heirs of Henry Howard in August 1920. At that point Wilson became the sole owner of the Double Mills property, the first sole owner in over a century.
Following "Mr. Sam's" death in the early 1930s, his son Norman operated the mill for a brief time. Then in February 1933 Samuel's widow Jennie and son Norman sold the Mills property, including the miller's home, general store, and grist mill to John P. Bennett and sons Harold, Darcy, and Carl. This was in the midst of the depression and Bennett, who already owned and operated a grocery store in Mardela Springs, saw this as an investment. Since few repairs had been made to the mill in several decades, Harold undertook extensive renovations of the mill and the mechanisms. The original millstones, weighing over 1,000 pounds each and thought to have been brought from England, had worn down to eight inches thickness. These were replaced with new stones from Pennsylvania. The oak crane for lifting the stones reportedly had been replaced with a new one in the years just after the Civil War. The old machinery and gears were left intact by the Bennetts, but new footings and a new turbine pit were poured, new vertical siding was added over the old framework, metal sheeting was put on the roof, and the exterior was painted white. No structural changes have been made since those in the early thirties. The Bennetts also opened the general store on the site and Double Mills became a commercial and social center of the rural community.
Harold and father John ran the mill complex on a day-to-day basis and Harold not only farmed the few acres included in the property but also undertook the expansion of the milling business. From the normal production of corn meal and hominy and ground poultry and hog feed, he expanded the custom milling, especially for the growing commercial chicken farming on Delmarva. He bought trucks and delivered grain/flour from Caroline County, Maryland to Accomack County, Virginia. Two trucks were kept busy, and the mill often ran twenty-four hours a day. Bennett and his family and their employees worked in shifts to produce the variety of ground grain products. Harold Bennett took courses in poultry veterinary medicine and became a consultant to the infant poultry business on the Shore. He developed four different formulas of poultry feed and in 1937 had them registered by the state of Maryland as Bennett Best Developing Ration, Bennett Best Chick Starter, D. M. Laying Mash, and Bennett Best Laying Mash. The retail sale of corn meal and hominy continued, along with the expanded wholesale venture. Harold and Carl Bennett became sole owners in January 1945. The business continued throughout World War II, but by the mid-forties there were major business changes beginning in the poultry industry on the Eastern Shore.
Raising chickens shifted from the individual farmer with a few chickens in a coop in the back yard to the amalgamated production from egg-to-table chicken. The large new industrial operations began their own feed production operations as well, and the slower grist-mill production was gradually squeezed out of business. The beginnings of this trend were apparent in the late forties. In June 1947 the Bennetts sold the Double Mills property, containing 2.79 acres of land, more or less, to Tennessee Thomas and wife Martha. Thomas continued to run the business primarily as a business service to local farmers and with a wholesale production of water ground corn meal to local grocery stores. The delivery of truckloads of grain and flour up and down the Shore was discontinued. In April 1958 Thomas' widow Martha sold the mill to Charles, Richard, and Edward Wright. They turned the mill operation over to Sherman Cooper who, with one helper, a deaf mute simply called "Bo," continued to produce fine stone-ground meal there until Cooper's death in 1977. He had trained one "apprentice," Herbert Wright, and Wright produced meal and hominy on a part-time basis until the fateful storm in 1979. Without that centuries-old source of energy it was necessary to close down operation, ending more than two-hundred years of milling history.