Transcription contributed by Martie Callihan 28 Oct 2004

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One of the greatest difficulties attending the settlement of the Northwest Territory was the want of mills to furnish meal and flour. The builder of the first grist-mill in a settlement was justly regarded as a public benefactor. The completion of the mill increased the value of neighboring lands and encouraged immigration. The settlers for miles around not only cheerfully met to help at the raising of a mill, but frequently labored gratuitously in the construction of the dam.

The earliest settlers of Warren County got their grinding done at Waldsmith's mill, on the Little Miami, twenty miles below the central part of the county, and near the site of Milford. The first mill on the Little Miami within the limits of the county was built about 1799, by William Wood, at the site now occupied by King's powder mills, and where the town of Gainesboro was afterward laid out. Wood's mill passed into the hands of Hunt & Lowe, by whom it was owned for many years. About 1799 or 1800, Henry Taylor built a mill on Turtle Creek, within the present corporate limits of Lebanon. There were several small mills erected on the streams running into the Miamis within ten years after the first settlements, and, although these streams furnished a more permanent supply of water than in later years, yet even then the mills were not able to do much work in the drier seasons, and were generally abandoned. Jabish Phillips built a mill about 1802 on the Little Miami, midway between the sites of Morrow and South Lebanon, afterward long known as Zimri Stubbs' mill, and soon after, Nebo Guantt built one at the site of Freeport. There was a mill erected at an early day at Franklin, and on January 23, 1802, Shubal Vail announced in the Western Spy the completion of his fulling-mill on the Great Miami near the "Big Prairie." In 1806, Brazilla Clark commenced the construction of a mill below the site of Foster's Crossing, which was afterward owned by Piercy Kitchell, and six years later Gov. Morrow built one a mile lower down on the Little Miami. In the county road records, mention is made of Capt. Stites' mill-dam, in November, 1804; "John Haines' mill at Waynesville," 1805; " Robert Each's mill on Todd's Fork," 1805; "Dr. Evan Bane's mill-dam near the county line," January, 1805; and " Samuel Heighway's mill," 1805. Some of these may have been saw-mills.