Beaver Creek Mill

This is a very old mill site. John Lane acquired about one hundred acres in 1767. There was a mill on the site when he sold it to his son, John Jr. in 1775. That first mill was likely built of logs. John Jr. sold the property to Abraham Swigart in 1793. Swigart promptly tore down the old mill and replaced it with a two-story stone structure, completing construction the following year. According to a plaque on the west gable, Swigart employed a stone mason named John Nagle to build his mill. A wooden, overshot waterwheel provided the power. Swigart would operate the mill for eighteen years before selling it to Ludwig Swartz.

Seven more owners would come and go until George Myers acquired the property in 1870. Myers died five years later, and his administrators offered the property for public sale in November of 1875. The sale bill described the mill as a three-story stone mill having two run of Burrs, two choppers and all the equipment necessary for merchant and custom work. It is not clear why they stated there were three stories, they must have included the basement. Jesse Masemer bought the property and would own it for the next fourteen years.

William Feiser became the next owner in 1890. Feiser remodeled the mill and replaced the old wooden overshot wheel with a Rechard turbine manufactured in York by the Codorus Iron Works. The mill processed feed, corn meal and flour as well as lumber in an attached sawmill. 

The mill went through several more owners until 1913 when J. Harry Sinner and his brother acquired the property. He was the last person to operate the mill commercially. Sinner sold it to George Jacobs in 1916. Jacobs continued to run the mill for his own purposes until about 1920 when operations finally ended. The mill stood unused for many years until George’s grandson, Carlton Jacobs sold the property to the East Berlin Historical Preservation Society in 1976.