The Mills Grind Slowly 175 



order was sent to France for a set of grinding stones. These 

 were cut and shipped to Baltimore, and then reshipped by 

 canal to Cumberland, Maryland. There they waited for winter 

 to come and cover the mountain roads with snow. Then 

 Miller Reitz yoked eight oxen to a sledge and went over the 

 ridge and down to Cumberland to fetch the stones to his 

 mill. On the return trip, while high in the mountains, the 

 sledge-runner struck a buried rock. Over went the sledge and 

 over went the millstones, crashing down the mountainside. 

 For twelve months more the mill and the farmers waited until 

 another set could be quarried and sent from La Ferte to 

 Cumberland and brought safely, this time across the moun- 

 tains. These now hang on the walls of the theater, after 

 nearly one hundred years' service to Somerset County farmers. 



In selecting a site for a settlement it was necessary to look 

 for a body of water which could be made to turn a wheel. The 

 difficulty of carrying corn to a distant village to be ground was 

 insurmountable with few draught animals and fewer and 

 these bad roads. The early records of Eastchester, one of the 

 first villages in Westchester County, New York, give the agree- 

 ment made by the thirteen original settlers in 1665. Article 

 Twenty-one provides "that one day every spring be improved 

 for the destroieng of rattellsnacks." 



That there were plenty of these creatures seems apparent 

 from the name "Rattellsnack Creek" on which the first mill 

 was built by John Jackson. Perhaps the rattlers drove John out, 

 for a few years later we read of the settlers making overtures to 

 John Taylor of Woodbridge to come and be their miller. This 

 John, too, may have had a healthy dislike for the wriggling 

 symbols of Coatlicue. He had to be urged! 



Ultimately an agreement was drawn up between him and 

 the council which the Town Clerk whose spelling suggests 

 that it was he who produced those ominous "rattellsnacks" 

 called "A covenant consernin keepin the mill and grinding our 

 come." By its terms the town set apart three acres of upland 

 and two of meadow for 



