BRANDYWINE—WELSH 681 
taste of chocolate, coffee, and good wine. The flour-milling industry, 
in every sense, was a large-scale enterprise, which preceded Du Pont’s 
gunpowder manufactory as the industrial giant on Brandywine 
Creek (22). 
The value of mills and mill property varied according to location, 
and in 1801 a mill upstream rented for much less than one on the 
navigable part of the Brandywine. Compared to a merchant mill 
at tidewater, a country mill in the interior was not worth much. 
Property near Wilmington cost $22 to $150 per acre, and in the early 
1800’s desirable millseats sold for close to the latter figure. The cost 
of land plus that of building a mill entailed a sizable expenditure. 
It was reported to K. I. du Pont in 1802 that the newest and finest 
of the Brandywine flour mills had cost “nearly 7000 dollars.” This 
estimate was for a building of four stories, measuring “98 feet long 
by 48 wide and 40 feet high,” and having “more stone under ground 
than in the walls” (23). 
Not only were Wilmington’s mills solidly built, but their owners 
were solid citizens as well. They championed abolition, care of the 
poor, penal reform, and internal improvements (roads, canals, and 
bridges) (24). Above all, during the Revolution they were patriots. 
Family legend maintains that Joseph Tatnall told George Washing- 
ton that “I cannot fight for thee, but I can and will feed thee.” Good 
to his word, his mill ledger for the period reflects large amounts of 
flour consigned to Robert Morris, financier of the Revolution. Even 
Tatnall’s home was used by George Washington, serving as his head- 
quarters on the eve of the Battle of the Brandywine (25). 
The flour-producing potential of the Wilmington area was of 
logistical import to both the British and American armies during 
the war. In the spring of 1776 a Quaker miller at Brandywine made 
a ledger entry that reflected not only the tenor of the times but also 
portended a change in the ordinary routine of the flour-milling 
business. Interspaced between the regular business notations for 
May 8 and 9, 1776, was recorded an account of “the Roe Buck, & 
Liverpoole Men of Warr & the 13 pensylvania Gunduloes,” and their 
“Ingagement in the Delaware River Opposite Wilmington” (26). 
It was not long after that General Washington was instructing 
his commanders to dismantle mills “which may be liable to fall into 
... [enemy] hands.” And on October 31, 1777, he directed Gen. 
James Potter “to remove the running Stones from the Mills in... 
Chester and Wilmington.” Five days after receiving the orders to 
remove the millstones, Potter wrote: “I’m a sorey to Inform your 
excelancey that the the Officer I send to the Brandywine Mills has not 
obay’d my orders. Instead of Taking the stons away he has taken the 
Spinnels, Rines and Ironnale heads. . . . Iam Informed that Taking 
these Artecals answers the same end as Removeing the stons. .. .” 
