Scott's Mill Ruins
Cecil Co. | Maryland | USA
Watersource: Big Elk Creek.
Scott's Mill Ruins
From Culvert, go east on Md 273 about 6 miles to Md 213/Singerly Road on the right. Go south on Singerly Road about 1 mile to the first intersection with Big Elk Chapel Rdoad, turn left/east and go to the next intersection with Gallaher Rd. There is a dirt parking lot at this intersection. Park here and walk across the road to the park entrance. The ruins sit about 1 mile down the dirt road. You must walk to the ruins.
These mill ruins stand on the east bank of the Big Elk Creek where the road from Andora to Cowentown ran. The site was once teaming with activity: the mill in the 4 story stone building ground flour and feed, a sawmill processed timber, a cider mill pressed juice, a bone mill ground bone for fertilizer, and across the covered bridge, an auger factory turned out augers for drills and a blacksmith tended horses.
The mill complex was described in 1874 as a "grist mill"... of stone, four stories high with two run of buhrs, driven by a Leffel wheel of great power; frame saw mill, two stories and basement with overshot wheel, bark mill, bone mill, etc.
This was not the first mill on this site, for in 1783, Samuel Cummings sold Henry McCoy "a piece of land adjoining the river with privilege to butt and raise a dam to pen and rise the water for the purpose of erecting on the east side of the river a water works". A deed of 1796 refers to "the new slitting mill now erecting on the east branch of the Elk River".
In 1815, James Jackson and John Bemis bought the mill. They owned it until John Scott purchased the mill in 1845. The Simon J. Martinet 1858 map showed David Scott as owning the land on which the mill was located. Text provided by Robert T. Kinsey.