Twelvepole Creek, Wayne County, West Virginia.
(circa 1890)

This old water powered grist Mill and Dam across Twelvepole Creek at the Buffalo Shoals, Wayne County, West Virginia was built about 1820 by Henry Luther, a great grandfather of Mrs. Doris (Copley) Miller, a reporter for the Huntington Publishing Company.  This Mill was across the Creek from the farm of 0-1-8 Gabriel Plymale, who sold his 160 acre farm to Henry Luther in 1834 for the sum of $100.00 and moved to Knox County, Illinois.  This Mill is where the early Wayne County Plymale settlers took their corn and wheat to grind into meal and flour.  It was also, used for sawing lumber.  Many of the neighborhood houses were built from lumber sawed in this mill.   During the winter months when the pool above the dam was frozen hard, the young and old would come to skate and have fun.  It is said that the young men would push their girl friends over the ice on oldtime homemade chairs.  About 1892 or 93, a flood destroyed the mill and it was never rebuilt.  This picture was made about 1890.   The house squarely over top of the mill is a solidly built cabin which the settlers are said to have found when they came there, and tradition says it was built by Jesuit missionaries.  The house just to right of center of the picture with a cedar tree in front of it was the Dr. Elder home.  In the 1840's, this house was used for a school, and old Thomas Napier "Uncle Tommy" -was said to be one of the first to teach in this house.  Above the mill can be seen a raft of logs waiting to be sawed.

A much larger version of this picture exists.
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