Godshall / Pleasant Valley Mill
Montgomery Co. | Pennsylvania | USA
Watersource: Skippack Creek.
Godshall / Pleasant Valley Mill
On Pa 63 (Sumneytown Pike) in Mainland, go east less than a half mile and turn right on Clemens Road. Travel about 0.5 miles to Rittenhouse Road. The mill is on the left just before the junction.
A large 4 story stone mill of 40'X 60' dimentions covered in stucco. The mill has been rumored to date from as far back as 1711-1714, but the 1740's seems more realistic. It has definite documentation back at least to 1760. It was one of several mills along the Skippack and Towamencin Creeks in Towamencin Township that early setlers relied on for processed lumber and agricultural products. It is one of the more unusual mills in that it has an almost flat roof. If snow gets to deep, it probably needs to be shoveled off.
Mill operators used to feed ears of corn into hoppers, crushers, and lastly through a grist mill; then, the end product would be bagged and loaded onto the waiting wagon. The mill was water-powered from its beginning and continued to be so into the late 1930's or early 1940's. The wheel is supposedly buried deep in the floor of the basement. Irvin Renninger became the mill manager in the 1940's and the operation was powered by electricity at that time. The mill crushed and ground its last feed in the early 1960's, at which time it was converted into a single-family dwelling; which, since 1991, has been the home of James & Jeanne Brown.