Armitage Mill / Quatielosse Mill
Bucks Co. | Pennsylvania | USA
Watersource: Cuttalossa Creek.
Armitage Mill / Quatielosse Mill
Located about 1.5 miles north of Sh 263/Upper York Road on Sugan Road between Paxton Road and Cutalossa Road on the east side at 3368 Sugan Road near the Cuttalossa Creek.
The mill was built in 1752 by Samuel Armitage, a Wakefield, England weaver, who arrived in America in 1738. Several stories have circulated concerning the building of the mill. The left third of the mill in the picture is the 1823 addition.
The mill end that used to have the wooden overshot wheel attached and still present up into the early 1940's.
The vintage photo above, taken with permission of the current owner, shows the mill after the 1823 addition from an Arnold Bros. postcard.
The photo shows the rear of the mill on the former wheel end, with the still existant tailrace in the foreground.
The wheel pit being used as a springhouse today. The Armitage Mill competed fairly well with other mills in the area, including the Heath Grist Mill on the Aquetong Creek near New Hope.
The last support for the boxed flume and later the steel penstock that supplied the wheel with water-power. Armitage's pre-revolutionary saw mill built nearby was in ruins by 1870. A plaster mill to grind limestone to produce mortar for stone work was also functioning during this time, but the grist/flour mill was the principle mill, operating for over 170 years.
Samuel's son, John, took over the mill in 1801. John & his nephew, Henry, called the mill the Quatielosse Mill and alway had kind words, nuts, apples & cider, and a warm fire for customers for over 30 years. John also enlarged the mill in 1823. Compare the above photo with the one below.
Henry's son, Jesse Amitage ran the mill from 1852 until he sold it out of the family in 1865 to Robert Good.
Good replaced the waterwheel with a new one and converted the mill to grind oats, corn, and livestock feeds, bringing to a halt the grinding of wheat for flour.
A sectional grindstone outside the mill/residence. The mill came back into the family in 1911, when Amos Amitage tried his hand to a milling process that was diminishing in necessity and largely on its way out, even as a feed millbusiness. He closed the mill in 1929.
The miller's house across Sugan Road from the end of the mill's lane.
The barn on the miller's house property.
A last parting shot of the rear of the Amitage mill, now a private residence, from across the mill pond.