Site/Ruins: Whiteside's Mill
Lancaster Co. | Pennsylvania | USA
Watersource: Cooper's Run.
Site/Ruins: Whiteside's Mill
From US 1 west of Oxford in Chester Co., Pa., exit on Pa 472, go NW through Oxford, crossing the Octoraro Creek. Procede a total of about 5 miles NW of Us 1 exit, turn right on Mount Eden Road, go two miles to the mill site/ruinsjust past Tick Hill Rd. junction and Cooper Run. The ruins are about 200' to the west of the 90 degree turn to the SE of Mt. Eden Road, as you look back toward the creek.
Built by John Andrews in 1824, this former 40'X 50' stone/frame mill was a flour, grist, and corn meal mill with a 1700' headrace and a 500' tailrace. The dam was 4' higher than the top of the overshot wheel, not a lot of drop, hence the long headrace to gain velocity of the waters of Cooper's Run/Morrison Run.
The production was not huge, 8 barrels of flour/day. The wheel is still in place in the ruins, but probably not the original wheel. Mrs. R. Andrews was the owner in 1864-75 and John Holmes in 1899.
J. Fred Whiteside was the last to operate the mill in the early part of the 20th century and he closed it in 1920. Most of the mill was removered then except what still remains, as seen in the photos, taken December 2005.