678 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1959 
tidewater of the Brandywine Creek near Wilmington, Del., were such 
a center (2). 
Here, in almost bucolic surroundings, successive generations of 
Quaker millers reaped handsome profits from the tons of flour 
that they shipped to the corners of the world. Here, too, the genius 
of Oliver Evans was put to work. By the 1780’s his inventions— 
elevators, conveyors, descenders, and the hopper-boy—were clanking 
away in the Brandywine Mills, helping to improve quality, increase 
yield, and reduce the physical burden of milling (3). Evans’s ma- 
chines, at first dubbed “rattletraps,” literally took the sack from the 
miller’s back and, in so doing, revolutionized the fiour-milling in- 
dustry. Finally, as Thomas Twining pointed out in 1796: “Here 
America already exhibited a spot which might be compared with any 
similar scene in England” (4). 
But what was so different about these mills, and why tell their 
story? ‘There is reason enough if one reflects on a long-forgotten 
but, to the historian, a challenging appraisal; namely, that a study 
of the Brandywine Mills “would afford a complete picture of the 
rise of the milling interest in the United States” (5). <A bit strong, 
perhaps, yet the Brandywine’s story was retold with each westward 
move of the population. Wilmington and her mills became a pro- 
totype of later flour-milling centers. 
One thing is certain, the history of Wilmington’s flour mills is the 
story of a successful business venture. In Wilmington there were 
mill owners whose records—diaries, journals, and letters—help to 
clarify the methods of one early American industry; but, more than 
a chronology of a successful enterprise, the mills on the tidewater of 
the Brandywine were also a prime force in the industrialization of 
a town. Here, in the 18th century, a group of Quaker businessmen, 
functioning in a favorable political, economic, and geographic en- 
vironment, made Wilmington a leading milling center. Their 
success encouraged imitation (6). 
Before the end of the 18th century local businessmen had invested 
in paper, cotton, calico printing, snuff, and slitting mills located on 
the Brandywine near the town; similarly, in New Castle County, 
particularly on Red and White Clay and Mill Creeks, waterpower 
turned the wheels of a variety of infant industries (7). Early in 
the 19th century the Du Ponts had added extensive gunpowder mills, 
a woolen mill, and a tannery to the Brandywine’s diverse industrial 
community; to many it seemed Wilmington was becoming “the 
Manchester of America” (8). 
A stroke of geographic luck saved Wilmington from being an 
agricultural village. Located on the tidewater, and easily acces- 
sible to navigation, her mills supplied the staple that stimulated and 
