Dutch Buffalo Mills
Submitted by Bill Furr
The Daily Independent, June 13, 1954
Dutch Buffalo Once Turned Water Wheel
John Cromwell Recalls Cabarrus County’s Famous Grist Mills
By Jim McAllister Daily Independent Staff Writer
Cabarrus county's water wheels are silent now all of the old grist mills are gone. Many of the men who operated these mills are still alive, however, and they like to reminisce about the days when the farmers had to look at the water level in the creeks to see if they could get their grain ground into flour and meal. One of the best known of the old millers is John Crowell. In his 72 years he has operated water driven mills in Cabarrus, Stanly and Randolph counties.
"Sometimes during a dry season after harvest in the fall," Crowell said, "grain sacks would be stacked up to the ceiling at the mill . . . we'd "look at the/dry creek and look up at the sky ands pray for rain." He said when rain finally came they'd work, around the clock to take advantage of the surging water.
Crowell learned the trade at the old Kindley Mill on Dutch Buffalo Creek near the present site of Mt. Pleasant Prison Camp. His father, Harris Crowell, ran the mill for about 20 years before the turn of the century. John and his brother, Charles, took up where their father left off as millers there.
In the old days there were five mills on Dutch Buffalo. They were the only ones "in the county except for Bost's Mill on Rocky River and another old mill on the river down near Midland. But the mills on Dutch Buffalo were the important ones. They served farmers in southeastern Rowan county, eastern Mecklenburg, western Stanly and practically all of Cabarrus. The mills were, south to north, Barrier's, Kindley's, Cager Barringer's, Miller's and Heilig's.
Crowell laughs about the time during World War I when the government decreed that all flour must contain at least one-fourth corn meal. He said at first the country side was in an uproar.
One farmer walked into the government office at Concord and declared: "Now listen here, I got my own farm, grow my own wheat and run my own mill and I'll jest be ding dab it if I'll mix any chicken feed with my flours" and he didn't, either."
The day the first World War ended, Crowell said, he ran down to the mill and blew the old steam whistle "until I thought it would bust."
The Kindley Mill was built in 1877 by W. W. Reid on a spot a few hundred feet north of the present highway 73 bridge across Dutch Buffalo creek. Three years later Mr. Reid sold the mill to Riley Kindley, the man who built the Kindley Cotton Mill in Mt. Pleasant.
The Kindley grist mill was powered by a turbine water wheel. This differed from the convention over-shot water wheel in that it was situated underneath the mill below the water level. Turbine wheels are usually less powerful than over-shot wheels because they depend on the direct force of the stream.
Crowell remembers a flood back in 1906 when the water in the creek got up over the windows of the first floor practically "ruined the equipment. His brother Charles and another man went about a half mile up the creek and swam with the current down to the mill in order to survey the damage.
The retired miller, who lives in is home just outside the Mt. Pleasant city limits, says the winters aren't nearly so cold as they once were. He recalls when the mill lake would freeze over with ice a foot thick. He also contends that most of the creeks in the county have filled in and are hardly any compared to what they were 60 years ago.
Frank Kindley who now owns the old mill property and has built a beautiful home there, operated the mill during its final years. Back in the twenties he built a dance hall beside the mill and converted the lake into a public swimming pool, with dressing rooms.
For a number of years the old mill, with its' new features, was one of the leading recreation centers in Cabarrus county.
Today, Charles M. Crowell, who gained his experience down on Dutch Buffalo, operates the county's only remaining flour mill, the Mt. Pleasant Milling company.