The beautiful stone grist mill now nearly in the center of Stillwater village on the Paulins Kill River has ancient beginnings in the area. Casper Shafer, a German immigrant, settled in what became the Stillwater area in 1741, and by 1742 or '43 built a simple wooden mill about a half mile upriver on the Paulins Kill from the present mill. This mill had a capacity of about five bushels of corn a day, nothing to be ashamed of in 1742. As the only mill in the area, business was good. So good that Shafer, in 1764, built a larger mill to replace his first one, down river on the main street of the village of Stillwater at the site of the present mill. By this time much of the flour produced here was shipped by flatboat down the Paulins Kill to the Delaware River and then, on to Philadelphia. It is probable that some of this business declined during the Revolutionary War.
This mill at the new location was a successful venture, indeed, and ten years later, in 1774, Shafer added a saw mill to his grist mill operation.
Then in 1776, he rebuilt and modernized the entire mill, an appropriate gesture in the new nation. The newest mill existed profitably until 1840 when it was totally destroyed by fire, not an unusual fate for grist mills. The present mill was built in the same location in 1844 using many of the original stones, but otherwise using the most modern equipment such as conveyors and turbines for creating water power.
The mill operated well into the 19th century, too busy, sometimes, to leave us historical records. The most unusual feature of this period is the fact that for years the mill was owned by a female Mrs. Jane McCord. She and her family owned and operated the mill from 1926 until Mrs. McCord ceased operation in October of 1954, after the death of her miller. The mill then was shut down, not unusual for this period, but it didn't stay closed.
In 1972, local farmer Williard Klemm bought the mill and much acreage, and totally repaired the long-idle structure and its deteriorated mill dam. Shortly, Klemm took in a partner, another local farmer, Gus Roof. Soon, the mill itself functioned exactly as it did when it was constructed in 1844. These new millers, in addition to growing and grinding grain, opened the mill every weekend to the general public. They handed out a brochure to visitors subtitled "Fun For the Whole Family", which offered fun for the young children and a grist mill, education to interested adult visitors, a generation who never saw a mill in operation before. Eventually they sold the property to a new owner, Richard Buxton, but the milling and educational operation never got started again.
The mill is empty and idle today but is hard to ignore, sitting on the corner Main Street and the Paulinskill River in still-rural Stillwater, Sussex County. There is some indication now that the State of New Jersey is interested in buying and restoring the fine structure. This fine structure cannot be allowed to deteriorate.
This information was obtained from the N. J. Skylands Web Site.
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