Innovations in Mill Technology

            The innovations discussed in this section are primarily those of Oliver Evans, whose ideas were intended to reduce the manual labor involved in milling.  In 1787 he wrote the following about milling of the day:

            “If the grain be brought to Mill by land carriage, the Miller took it on his back a sack weighing three bushels, carried it up one story by stairsteps, emptied it in a  tub…This tub was hoisted by a jack moved by the power of the mill, which required one man below and another above to attend to it, when up the tub was moved by hand to the granary, and emptied.  All this required strong men”  [29]  He also observed an inefficient method of cooling the ground flour before it was bolted, by dumping it out on the floor and raking it.  This was done so that it would not stick to the bolters.  He mentions that fact that the bolting hopper, which feeds the flour into the bolters needs constant attendance.

            Evans invented a grain elevator, powered by the waterwheel.  “It was an endless band with buckets or cups spaced about twelve inches apart on a belt moving over two pulleys… it was all enclosed to protect the moving belt and ground grain.  This elevator could elevate continuously, and thus lift three hundred bushels of grain or flour per hour.” [30]

            The next step in the milling process was raking through the milled grain by the hopper boy, a hired hand.  His invention had the same name as the boy it replaced, the hopper-boy.  Again, powered by the waterwheel, this was simply a large revolving rake, in a drum.  Grain that had just been milled would be dumped into the outside circumference of the hopper-boy, and in a process reverse to that of millstones, the flour worked its way slowly inward. When it fell through the hole in the middle of the hopper-boy, it was transferred to the bolters. [31]

            In 1788, Evans obtained the patents for his inventions in Delaware, Pennsylvania an Maryland, but nobody was interested in them.  He began working on The Young Mill-wright and Miller’s Guide to promote his ideas, but ended up only giving them away to the public.  His inventions spread, and his book’s guidelines became a standard guide for millers, but he never received the credit he deserved for inventing these labor-saving mill adaptations.[32]

            Another important invention was a waterwheel with curved buckets by John Fitz.  It provided more power because the water is held in the buckets almost half way around the circle, instead of one third of the way, as in a traditional waterwheel.  This new waterwheel was 90 percent efficient.(Figs 8 & 9)