In the lead article in the April 2018 issue of The Historian, David I. Miller remembers:
Growing up near Grantsville, Maryland, I was aware of some of the historic places of the area. I associated in some way with the historical reminders featured in this article. I frequented Stanton’s Mill, at Little Crossings, with its services of milling livestock feed, dealing in commercial feeds, and producing its own brand of buckwheat flour. I had occasions of being on the homestead where the John Hochstetler house stood on its original foundation on the Omar Bender farm near Summit Mills; I played there with my cousins. Frequent drives on State Route 669 took us past the admirable Abraham Beachy house near West Salisbury; even a child could sense that it was not an ordinary house. The stone arch bridge across the Casselman River was admired for its structure and historicity and is remembered for the deep-down-gut feel when crossing its zenith even at a reasonable speed in a car. The bridge was a challenge when my father pastured our cattle in the adjoining woods; we stretched a wire fence across the river under the bridge (with its acoustical echo) to keep the cattle from wandering upstream when the water was low.
The structures noted in this article date back to the period of 1800 to 1825. Our taking notice of these structures relates to the current focus of the Casselman Historians and The Historian on the Amish Mennonite experience in the Casselman Valley in that period. The two residential houses were built by Amish families, one by about 1800 and the other in 1809. The mill and the bridge are not of Amish origin, but each represents usage and culture that relates to the historical experience of the time.
These structures represent housing, industry, and transportation. Each has been preserved through the stewardship of those who had or took responsibility for maintenance and restoration at crucial points of time. After more then two centuries, we have standing today Stanton’s Mill of 1797, the John Hochstetler house of circa 1800, the Abraham Beachy house of 1809, and the Casselman River Bridge of 1813. [Click here for the entire article]
