The Missouri in the Civil War Message Board

Re: Witzler's Mill
In Response To: Witzler's Mill ()

Terry,

That would be Switzler's Mill in east-central Chariton County not far from the Howard County line. It is mentioned a few times in the "Official Records." I do interpret "Missouri Speak," and it comes in handy when somebody mangles good ol' Missouri names that badly.

I also recommend some available works that may greatly help you (and anyone else) in your quest for mills:

--Ramsay's online place name file at http://shs.umsystem.edu/manuscripts/ramsay.html

--Moser's online place name file at http://thelibrary.org/lochist/moser/index.html

Both of the above were composed by the 1940's, as I recall my reading, while they could still plumb lots of available good memories of "the old days." I have used both extensively in my research. Further, go beyond the name of the mill you seek to the creek or river name entry it was sited beside. Sometimes you can find information on mills listed under the drain names in the text. I prefer Ramsay's file, but Moser surprises me once in a while, too.

--OLD COUNTY HISTORIES. If you are rather certain about the county location for a certain mill, look for some of those old 1881 through WWI county histories, as they are loaded with such things. Try and find one that some kind soul made an index for, unless you favor leafing through 500 pages of stuff that will turn you mind into jelly. The more modern county histories are too far removed from the days of mills to offer much on the topic, but you might get lucky. All the counties of the Missouri region have these.

--GOOD MAPS. As a mapmaker, I naturally favor maps to help me find obscure place names. The government maps are good, especially the old "Quad Sheets," or 7.5 minute sheets made by the U.S. Geologic Survey in the 1940's through the 1960's. These are the ones the hunters prefer since they show all the creeks and most of the buildings, too, and all those contour lines. But, I digress. There is a new series of 1:100,000 maps that are made from the old "Quad Sheets." They don't show as much detail, because they have a smaller scale, but they help you find all the rivers and particularly the creek names in an area. You can collect all these newer 1:100,000 sheets for an entire region or even a state for a lot less money than the 7.5 minute maps, since you need fewer of them to cover the subject. The good thing about these new maps is that you get a broader view of a location, while with the 7.5 minute sheets you feel focused in so deep that you may actually miss your target because you are too close.

--GOOD OLD MAPS. Although for Missouri there are old 1861 maps of the state showing great detail in short atlases (and reprints of them, too), I personally prefer the 1876 Campbell's atlas of Missouri. The 1876 Campbell shows mills in many cases, and I seem to recall it has a set symbol for them as well as quarries, mines, and the like. Years ago a very obliging librarian graciously allowed me to photocopy the whole thing, and I didn't know they even made machines that would copy pages that big. Sadly, that old photocopy version looks like it went through the Civil War now. You could take a good digital camera and a tripod and shoot the pages on a library table, if the librarian or archivst will allow it. Old copies of these atlases occasionally show up in auctions and other venues in which you may be able to purchase an original copy for your very own, but we are talking big money (or at least it seems big to me). The same applies to old county plat map books. Those sell dear, too, but there is a lot of good detail in them if you can find one old enough in a county in which you are looking for a mill site.

I hope that helps. At least, these are some of the tools I use to look up obscure mill names that pop up in old Civil War reports.

Bruce Nichols

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