Birmingham Township.

As we proceeded in the abrupt bend of the creek to the south, near where Twaddell's old paper-mill stands, at the beginning of this century was a saw-mill, which has long ago disappeared. Previous to 1777, William Twaddell became the owner of the estate, comprising all the neck of land, and here he erected iron-works in connection with the saw-mill. In 1780 he was in Aston, and in that year called himself a "forgemaster," and registered three slaves as his property. At that time he doubtless was working the old forge at Rockdale. It is by tradition asserted that when the American army lay encamped at Chad's Ford, Twaddell bargained with a number of deserting militiamen to dig a race for him, extending from above Pyle's Ford to his saw-mill, situated nearly three-quarters of a mile below. When the race was about finished, Twaddell, in apparent alarm, came running to where the men were working, shouting out, "The British! the British!" whereupon the deserters hastily decamped without waiting to be paid for the job. The iron-works were erected subsequent to 1780. The distance which Twaddell had to cart the ore before and the iron after smelting induced him to change the works into powder-mills in 1807, which were known as the "Cannon Powder-Mills," and as such they continued until 1831, at which time he had two powder-mills and four drying-houses, when they were again changed into paper-mills.

It is alleged that on several occasions there were explosions at the mills while powder was made there, but in no instance was any person injured. Just above Twaddell's dam, which crossed the Brandywine obliquely, Thomas Gibson had a saw-mill on the west side of the creek, the dam of the latter being at right angles to the stream. Even now, when the water is low and clear, the race can be traced down to where Gibson's saw-mill stood. Long years ago the mill was struck by lightning, the building destroyed, and the sawyer killed. Half a mile above Pyle's Ford is the Twin or Barney bridge, at John B. Barney's farm, from which circumstance the bridge is frequently called by his name. The term Twin was applied to it because while one span crosses the creek the othe spans the meadow at Barney's, which was done by the commissioners on the score of economy, believing the bridge over the land would cost less than to fill the eastern approach with earth.

An interesting event happened in April, 1880, at John B. Barney's residence, when his son, accompanied by his bride from New York, visited the old homestead. It was the ninetieth anniversary of the birth of Mrs. Barney, and on that occasion a bottle of wine that had been recovered from the wreck of the British sloop-of-war "Mercury,"¹ which was sunk in the North River seven miles above New York, in 1777, was opened. When taken from the wreck the bottle was full of wine and almost imbedded in oysters. In 1822 it was opened when John B. Barney was named, and had been sealed anew to be again opened nearly sixty years thereafter.

The bridge of the Baltimore Central Railroad, below Chad's Ford, was built in 1859. In forming the embankment for this bridge, in September, 1859, the skeleton of a soldier was found, together with the brass belt-buckle and leather buttons of his uniform, the latter indicating that it was the remains of an English soldier. A bullet - the one which had deprived him of life - was found among his rib bones. At the east of the bridge stood Chads' mill, heretofore mentioned, the remains of which were discovered in 1860, when Caleb Brinton, Jr., built the present merchant-mill at that point. Previous to that time Brinton had built a large frame building for a merchant-, flour-, and saw-mill on Dix's Run, above the Delaware County line. There he conducted business for some time, but the water-power being insufficient, he moved the machinery to the larger building he erected on the site of Chads' old mill. Following the creek a short distance below the county bridge at Chad's Ford is the mouth of Harvey's Run. The first mills on this stream were those erected by Benjamin Ring some years previous to the Revolution, and comprised grist-, fulling-, and saw-mills. The mills subsequently became the property of Eli Harvey, and in time that of his son, Joseph P. Harvey, and are now part of the estate owned by Joseph Turner. The old mills have disappeared - were torn down by Turner to erect in their place a large grist- and merchant-mill. Still following the east branch of Harvey's Run, about a mile east of Chad's Ford, was a saw-mill, said to have been erected by one of the Butcher family about the beginning of this century. In March, 1819, it is recorded that Benjamin Hampton, the sawyer at this mill, while running through a large poplar log, heard the saw strike against an unusually hard substance, which he found to be a forty-four-pound cannon-ball, completely imbedded in the wood so as to leave no external mark. It was a relic of the battle, the tree having been cut just back of the grove, on the west side of the creek, where the British artillery was stationed. The old solid shot, however, absolutely destroyed the teeth of the saw. This mill disappeared sixty years ago, but the property was purchased in 1842 by Job Pyle, who set up a saw-mill there to cut the timber felled on the farm. Pyle sold the estate to Thomas Brinton, who repaired the mill, and also put in buhrs to grind feed.

Retracing our steps to the west branch of Harvey's Run, immediately opposite and some distance up the road, where Chalkley Harvey's house stood, was in the olden times a corn-mill, while some distance farther up the road was an oil-mill for grinding linseed. The place where the mill stood can still be traced by the indentations in the bank on the north side of the road.