I don’t recall seeing a grist mill in 19 years living in California and another 10 in Florida. To me they were the stuff of idealistic photos and illustrations from Switzerland and New England. Then I moved to Bucks County. Wow, water-powered old mills everywhere, though most no longer mashed grain between heavy grindstones into flour.

I explained this to my beloved Aunt Bennie Fry as I was about to visit a grist mill home in Upper Bucks County with my granddaughter Margaux and daughter Genevieve. Bennie was much impressed. “Oh, how I’d like to tour just one of them,” she sighed, now in her 90s in Oregon.

To me, it seems a miracle that so many mills have survived to tell their 18th century story of Bucks’ livelihood as a recognized “breadbasket of the world”. Seems like every one of the county’s 54 municipalities had a mill or two or three in the past, each powered by rushing rivers and tributaries that proliferate in a county with average rainfall of 40 inches.

Today, surviving mills are museum pieces or converted into some other use. My family and I have visited more that a few. These come to mind.

Tracy and Kerry Kramer’s incredible mill home was built before the American Revolution on Unami Creek in the Upper Bucks village of Milford Square. The imposing stone structure with 3-foot-thick walls is accessed by a gated bridge spanning the creek.

Just off the entrance stairwell, we entered the open architecture of a vast ground floor living room, solarium and modern kitchen. The mill’s original grindstone serves as a coffee table supported by enormous beams in the basement. The living area gives way through sliding glass doors to a wrap-around veranda perched high above the swift-flowing creek that once powered the mill’s basement waterwheel. Support-beams in upstairs bedrooms show axe cuts made centuries ago.

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The mill in Durham Township in a well-preserved museum hiding a secret in its basement – the original blast furnace that created steel for stoves and ammo for George Washington’s army in 1776. The grand kids and I have climbed all over the sprawling building beside Cooks Creek where flour was produced for international markets in the 1800s. A well-preserved basement waterwheel once turned grindstones to crush local grain into flour.

The nationally famous New Hope Playhouse occupies this former mill, giving Coryell’s Ferry a new name. In the 1930s Broadway playwrights Moss Hart and Kenyon Nicholson saved the mill from demolition by converting it into a theater for Broadway-bound plays. Succeeding decades drew stars such as Bela Lugosi, Kim Hunter, George C. Scott, Bea Arthur, Eli Wallach, Liza Minnelli, John Lithgow, Grace Kelly, Angela Lansbury, Robert Redford and many more stage luminaries. The tradition continues at the Playhouse.

Pennsylvania has restored the old grist mill just off River Road in Solebury to working condition. The picturesque mill, one of three originally built at the site in the upper section of Washington Crossing Historic Park, sits beside rushing Pidcock Creek at the base of Bowman’s Hill with its 125-foot-high watch tower. Occasionally, the mill comes alive for demonstrations of the milling process. Public tours are offered.

This three-story mill on Neshaminy Creek dominates Hulmeville, founded by a family descended from William the Conqueror in Normandy. John Hulme and his sons energized the former Milford into a 19th century industrial powerhouse. Today, the mud-ravaged basement waterwheel is idle. Remnants can be seen by hiking down a slope to the back of the building. The mill has functioned as an antiques and flea market in modern times.

Wife Mary Anne and I have enjoyed community theater inside renovated Spring Garden Mill with its eye-catching ventilation cupola in Northampton.

The mill’s survival on Neshaminy Creek came against the odds. A fire in 1862 gutted the building. It wasn’t until 1878 that it was restored. In the 1930s new owner George Tyler, a Philadelphia banker, made improvements including adding a gas station. Nearby was the county’s oldest covered bridge which succumbed to a record-breaking flood in 1955. The mill, though swamped, survived. It’s now a portion of Neshaminy State Park. The state in 1976 converted the mill into a drama theater for the Langhorne Players. Community actors today offer superb off-Broadway plays to patrons enjoying plush seating close to the stage.

My plan is to privately tour this working mill in Doylestown Township. It’s the only grist mill still in operation in Bucks County. Look for my adventure later this summer. Stay tuned.

Sources include “The History of Tyler State Park” by Brian Rounsavill published in 2021, “Place Names in Bucks County Pennsylvania” by George MacReynolds published in 1976 and my previous columns about grist mills in Bucks.

Carl LaVO can be reached at carllavo0@gmail.com