Ronald Brehm

Interview of Ronald Brehm by Henry Koch for the Elizabeth V. and George F. Gardner Digital Library Memory Bank. Brehm discusses growing up next to the Barnitz Mill, working at the mill as a child next to his father, as well as the village of Barnitz and some of the history connected to the mill and village.

The following is a machine generated transcript:

-Hello, my name is Henry Koch. I am interviewing Mr. Ron Brehm today and I live at 540 Pine Road and this house was built by the Barnitz family as a mill house and Mr. Brehm also lived at 540 Pine Road and during his childhood and eventually moved out. So from what he said I'm the first child to grow up in that house since 1939. So I thought that was relevant. I'd bring that up. But today we're talking about the Barnitz Mill and the village of Barnitz and I'll start here and Mr. Brehm, when did you move in? When did you move in? 
-We moved to Barnitz in 1937. 
-1937. Was that because of your dad's job? 
-Pardon me? 
-Was that because of your dad's job at the... 
-Yes, that was when my dad started to work for Mr. Barnitz. 
-What was your dad's job at the mill? 
-He was a truck driver and anything else that was needed to be done around the mill, whatever. 
-You know how many people worked in the mill? Like how many people? 
-Well there was about four. There's about four people that are most of the time. 
-I would have thought it was a bigger crew than that. 
-Yeah, no. 
-Just four. Wow. I wrote all these down but they're not very... they're not even workers. I'll say that. Well I'm assuming whenever the mill was sold your parents moved away? 
-Yes, they moved in, moved to Carlisle. Yeah. 
-Now what was life like around the mill? Was it loud? Was it smoky, like industrial or anything? 
-No, it wasn't any of those things. It was, of course you could hear the machinery running but it wasn't real loud. 
-Yeah. 
-You know the roller mill was made that crushed the wheat. Made some noise but the water wheel and all the gearing and stuff didn't make much noise at all. 
-Wow. How'd your dad learn about the job at the mill? 
-From my uncle. My uncle Herman Deitch worked for Barnitz mill until Bill Barnitz sold the warehouse on West Street in Carlisle next to the railroad to Paul Sunday, P.O. Sunday, and my uncle went to work for him, called my dad, and said there's a job open at Barnitz mill. 
-All right. What products did the mill make? 
-Well they made... basically the main thing they made was flour and they also made cornmeal. There was also a winner, W
-I
-N
-N
-E
-R, winner, um, flour, which was a better grade. I think it was like a cake flour and the cornmeal was very, was a very big thing because it was ground on a stone and people liked that. So that's basically what they made. 
-Now when people would try to buy this would they buy it directly from the mill or would they have to go into town to the store to buy it? 
-You could come right to the mill and get it. 
-Yeah. Now didn't they, to get it to town, didn't they ship it off of the railroad platform? 
-Pardon me? 
-Didn't they ship it off of the railroad platform? 
-Well, they would, during the war, they would, the railroad would put a car in the siding right back of your washhouse and pull it into the warehouse or into that area and they would load that with flour and it went to the military during the war and other places. They used the railroad quite a bit. 
-Now wasn't that Reading railroad? 
-It was Reading railroad. 
-Hmm, because I remember there was a, because Barnitz wasn't really heard of at the time, there was a 1905 a crash down head on collision with two trains. 
-Yeah. 
-Just about, probably by King's Gap store almost, between King's Gap and Barnitz. That's what it said in the newspaper. 
-Yeah. 
-Now how, I understand that the mill was not just the mill, it was a milling complex. Like when there was a sawmill and a fulling mill? 
-There were three races that come off of Main Creek and one went into the mill pond that run the mill, one went to the sawmill, and one went to the cooper's mill. And there was also, at one time, but I knew nothing about this, a fulling mill, which had to do with cloth. And I know, I know nothing. I don't know where that was. I don't know how it was run. I know nothing. It wasn't around when I was. 
-Now, what were the operating hours of the mill? Like when did the workday start and end? 
-Seven to five. 
-Seven to five. Now, did it run year
-round or did it close in the wintertime? 
-Pardon me. 
-Did the mill close in the it ran year
-round. And it wintertime or did it run year
-round? 
-Oh, was ice cold in the mill. 
-Wow. 
-They had a little stove in the office, but other than that, the mill was ice cold. 
-Like a little parlor stove. 
-Yeah. 
-Huh. Let's see. What happened, like when did they tear down all the other buildings other than the Barnitz's mill? 
-Well, I don't know exactly when it was torn down, but Paul Bear, who was a local boy, bought the warehouse. And he used it for a business, hay and straw and grain. And he built the house next to you. 
-Oh, that house. 
-And I don't know exactly when that was torn down, plus the house that was on the corner and also the scale shed where the scales were that you could pull a truck on. That was right on the corner. 
-Now, where the park sit? 
-When they were torn down, I don't know exactly because I don't know. I wasn't paying attention, I guess, but. 
-That's all right. Now, where the park parking lot is, where the Stewart Park sign was, wasn't there a house there? Because I remember seeing that photo with the warehouse and the scale shed. 
-You know where the sign was that was knocked down? That's approximately where the house was. 
-Now, was that a... 
-There was a road in front of the house, and as you crawled out the back window, you were in water. 
-Oh. 
-That's where the race came into the mill. Right back to the house, they had a footbridge across that stream, and on that area is where they had their woodpile and all that stuff. And then up where the two things were, where the water came in between, you're familiar, right toward the mill from that, there was a garage that went to that house. Yeah. 
-Now, was the park being open now? Was it much more wooded? Were there a lot more trees there than there are now? 
-Yeah. 
-So, it's like a forest. I heard you telling me a story about this, but who was Elijah Brown? Elisha Brown was an African
-American, a black gentleman who came from Virginia, brought up from Virginia by the Steigleman family for their farm, which is... Their farm was on the other side of the bridge right below the mill. And I don't know how they got in touch with him. His parents were slaves, called Pepper, Virginia. And when the Steiglemans quit farming, Mrs. Barnitz took him at her place, and he had an apartment above the garage. 
-Yeah, that window. Yeah, it's still there. 
-And so, he was with her till he died. 
-When did he die? 
-I don't know, but the information's on... He's buried in the Holly Cemetery with the rest of the Barnitz family, and his date is on there. I'm thinking in the 70s, sometime [April 4, 1975]. I'm not sure. I stop and look at that grave site on occasion. I should write that all down. It's all there. 
-Well, it's all being recorded now. That's good. Did you say he had a bike that he'd ride to Carlisle and to Mount Holly? 
-He must have put a million miles on that bike. Elisha rode the bike everywhere. That's the only transportation he had. And, yeah, he... I don't know whatever happened to the bike, but he rode it, my gosh, forever. And Mrs. Barnitz bought the tires and stuff, whatever he needed for it. But he would change them, hisself. He couldn't read or write. Did I say that? 
-No, you didn't mention that yet. 
-He couldn't read or write. 
-Now, was he part of the four
-man crew in the mill? 
-No. 
-Oh, he wasn't? 
-No, no. He was totally the helper for the Barnitz family. He cooked, he mowed, made the beds, done the washing, all that stuff. That's what he did. He did nothing at the mill. 
-Now, the reason this is relevant to this is because, and I want to say the 1930s or 40s, wasn't it, that Mrs. Barnitz's husband died. He drowned in Africa. 
-You want to hear that whole story? 
-Sure. You got time. 
-Well, my dad was hired by William B. Barnitz in fall of 1937. And when we moved there in the house you live in, my brother, who was nine at the time, was sick in bed, very sick. And I was three. I don't remember much about him, but anyway, William B. Barnitz, these stories are told to me by my mother often. He came up to visit my brother, who was in bed in the dining room. And he said, "Now Kenneth, when I come back from Africa, I'm going to come up and get you, and we're going to take a hike up into the mountain." And I talked to the daughter, Barbara, Barbara Lillich, at a funeral. We were both at the people we both knew. And when we reminisced about some of that stuff then, we talked about her dad coming up to see my brother. She said, "Well Ronald, I was with my dad when he came up to see your brother. My mother never told me that. I didn't know it." Anyway, he went with his aunt and uncle to Cape Town, South Africa on a steamboat trip, and was swimming and drowned. In 1938. And shortly after he drowned, my brother died. And so that's the story about his death. It took him four days to find him, but they did, and he's buried up there in Mount Holly Spring Cemetery. Honestly, he was the first one buried there. So there's a big—have you seen the—have you ever been up there? 
-To Mount Holy Spring Cemetery. I was there to see Mr. Bixler's grave, but not to see any of the Barntiz's graves. I didn't know anyone buried there. 
-Okay, well there's a big mountain stone there. Masland is buried on one side of it and Barnitz on the other. That's the Masland's from the factory, from the—they were close friends. That's the story about William Barntiz's death that I was told. And of course it's documented. There are stories about it, and it was in the paper and all they had. Your book tells you when that—what paper that was in, so you could get a copy of it if you wanted to. 
-Yeah, I'll have to find that. Now, after that happened, wasn't that when Mrs. Barnitz's was in full charge of the mill? 
-Yes, Mrs. Barnitz's run the mill until forty
-eight. I think I'm right on that. And she was a sweet lady, a business lady who came—came up to visit my mother different times. And when she would go to Rehoboth Beach on vacation, she would send Elisha up every day with the mail, because he could not read or write. And there were certain things she needed to know about being a businesswoman. And my mother would read the envelope to him, and he'd say, "Oh, that's okay." So she'd lay that aside. But when she'd come to one that Mrs. Barnitz's told him that she needed to know about, mother would have to open it and read it to him, and he'd tell her what to send to Rehoboth Beach, a penny postcard. He would think they would have called, wouldn't you? 
-You would think. 
-Not then. It wasn't phone. He couldn't have got her to Rehoboth Beach. 
-No, it was too far. 
-Anyway, that's the way they communicated. And then when she'd come back, she'd always have a gift for my mother and one for me. So that was pretty neat. She was a nice lady. 
-Now, didn't you say Elisha would call your dad Mr. Mel and call you Ronnie Boy? 
-Yes, Mr. Mel. He called my dad. My dad's name was Melvin, and he called him Mr. Mel, and he called me Ronnie Boy. And that's when he would holler when he'd bike down to the general store? 
-Yeah. 
-Now, did the Barnitz's family go to the Barnitz's church? 
-No. They went to the Lutheran Church in Carlisle, on the corner of Bedford and High Street. And Barbara still belongs there. 
-Oh, I didn't know. 
-The girls didn't go to Barnitz's school either. The one
-room school? They were sent to Carlisle out to friends and relatives and went to school in Carlisle, the whole time they went to school. They never went to Barnitz's. 
-Wow. I would have thought they would have. 
-Well, I guess that's the way rich people did things back then. They were rich people. The girls, this is 
-Yeah, that would make sense. 
-They were rich people. The girls, this is just a little side thing, but the girls grew up, Barbara's seven years older than me. Janet was older than Barbara. Barbara, or Janet, went to, they both went to college, and Barbara was a school teacher. No, I'm sorry. Janet was a school teacher in Baltimore, died very young though, and never married. But Barbara married Dave Lillich, and they were, she's still living, and they lived on one of the original Barnitz's farms up on North Dickinson School Road. 
-And do you know where the five Barnitz's farms were? 
-Well, two of them were on North Dickinson School Road. One was right across and down the lane from one was on York Road. One was there where they lived, on the corner of that barn where Bixler's lived, and one was back under the railroad tracks. 
-Yeah, that one's across the tracks from where you live. Yeah, that one's still partially standing. 
-Yeah, yeah, that's where they were. They were all in the area. 
-Now, were they contracted by the Barnitz's family for grain, or were they just like, or did... 
-Everything was done at the time. It was called farming on the half. The farmer got half the grain, and the Barnitz's family got half the grain. 
-And they would get paid for that half? 
-I guess they paid him in cash, I don't know. They paid the farmer. He could sell his grain. All the grain came in to Barnitz's mill, and my dad would dump the bags of grain from a certain farm. And they would get down and chute, and buckets on a belt would pick it up and put it in this big scale that were in the center of the warehouse. It was an enormous thing. And then he'd weigh that and take half of it and make record of that. So he knew the farmer was getting half and the mill was getting half. And then I'm sure they paid the farmer his half, and the mill just got their half. 
-And they sold it. 
-Grandma Barnitz's owned all that stuff until she died, which is... was in 50 something. 58? I think she died in 58. But she was still the owner. She still owned the house you lived in. Yeah, you had the pay rent. And they called her Grandma Barnitz's. She lived in the Pomfret apartments in Carlisle on the Pomfret Street. You may have passed them. There's a whole bunch of shops up there, but there's an apartment house. And whenever my mother went to market, when she'd get to sell a cake or two or whatever, a pie, she would give me six dollars and say, "Go pay Grandma Barnitz's the rent." So I'd go out of the market house, walk down Hanover, go up to her apartment, hand her the six dollars. She'd say, "Well, Ronald, come on in." She would set me down, give me a drink, and question me about stuff about Barnitz. I don't know if the family didn't tell her anything or not, but she got a lot of information out of me. She'd ask me, "How's the corn look?" She just wanted to know. I guess she probably wanted to know how much money she was going to get if the crops were harvested. I don't know. 
-Wow. 
-Now, did you see the picture of her giving the parsonage to the key to the parsonage to my dad? 
-I have that picture. 
-You have it? 
-Yeah, it's on my phone. 
-Oh, wow. Well, there's one picture of it in the church. Oh, you guys got that one up? Yeah, I gave a copy to Bill. Yeah, so he hung that. 
-Yeah. I guess I'll see that on Sunday. Now, what were the details on the train station, like in the siding and all that? Did it take up the whole backyard? 
-Well, the train station, I could probably walk you up there and show you just about exactly where it was. It had two big blue and white signs on it said, "Barnitz," they were huge. I wish I had one. But they tore that down. It had a phone in it that the railroad people could talk to one another. And the phone line was on poles, ran alongside the railroad. And then there's a siding went in, and it was about three feet from that railroad arm that's sticking in your backyard. Yeah, the piece of rail. It went back and down long into the beside the warehouse. 
-Oh, so it went all the way down there? 
-Down to the warehouse. 
-Oh, wow. I thought it, I didn't think it went down that far. Yeah, it went all across that. 
-L It went clear down the warehouse because that's where they loaded the flour. That's where coal car loads of coal came in to the coal shed, where they put that and all that kind of stuff. But every day, once a day, the local, we called it the local. It had about six or eight cars on it. And of course, back then, they all had a caboose. But they would come up and the mill got all their stuff, the bags, the flour bags and everything by train. They would stop. The conductor would out slide the door open and they would carry the stuff into the, and my dad would bring the truck up and pick it up. So that's how it come. That's what they used that for. That's what they used the train station for, basically. I don't remember ever being a passenger deal. I don't think there was ever. I think it was just for 
-Just a freight line. Well, weren't there two tracks? 
-Yeah, that's what I think. 
-Now, was it all steam locomotives or diesel? They were all steam back then. 
-Well, it's cool because if you walk along the current tracks that are back there that are run by Norfolk Southern, you can still find cinders that blew out from the steam locomotives. They're still in the yard all over the place. 
-Back then, there was two tracks. There was an up track and a down track. Now there's only one. 
-You can still find plenty of cinders. It's pretty cool. Now, didn't they cut ice back in the creek? 
-Yes. Have you ever been over there? 
-Yeah, I've been. 
-You've seen the ice point. 
-It's not really much of a pond anymore. It's just. 
-Yeah, it's grown up. Is the concrete still there where they could let the water out? 
-Yeah, it's still not a lot of it, but there's still parts, pieces of concrete back there. 
-Yeah, yeah, I remember my dad used to open the inlet up the creek, up a little bit above the corner. He'd open the inlet, let the water in. The one where it goes out would be closed and it filled that up and it would freeze. 
-Now, how did they get back there? Was there, because when I went back there, it was kind of treacherous. It was all grown up in trees everywhere. Was there like ridges over the creek? 
-It was clear that plus there was a wooden structure built over top of Pine Road that they slid that ice across to the ice house at the Creamery, which is also the railroad station. Yeah, which is on your property. It was on your property. 
-And it's a shame they took that down. That was pretty good. So yeah, they'd slide that. When did they stock the reefer cars with that back then? 
-I don't know. They hauled milk out of there. And there was a siding come in to the Creamery, which was gone when I remember. But they loaded milk on a tanker car. 
-Oh. 
-And where it went, I have no idea. But there's a picture of that in one of the books that I have. And you've seen a picture of Creamery in the ice house. 
-You would think like from the way you describe it and all that, you would think it's just a small station, but it's like a two
-story building almost. It was huge. 
-It was big. 
-Now was it painted? 
-The foundation was still all there when I was growing up. Was younger than you. I was younger than you are right now. And I played around in that where the building had been torn down, but the foundation was still there. 
-Do you know what year they tore it down? Do you know what year they tore it down? 
-No. That's another thing I remember when they did that. But it was done after we moved away, I think. It was probably done sometime in the 50s. 
-So that's when most of everything was torn down, except for the big mill. 
-Yeah. 
-Now was since when I've seen color photos of everything, everything was painted yellow. Was the station, if you can remember, was it painted any specific color or was it just wood? 
-Yeah. 
-It was just wood, no paint. 
-Yeah, wood. Barnitz family had was painted yellow. 
-Now was it painted yellow for the longest? Because there's an 1890 photo of the mill and it doesn't look like it was painted yellow at the time. 
-Yeah. Unless they got a good price of yellow paint out of them. 
-Along with slate roof because that was on the barn as well at the house. Do you know what was the company truck? The Barnitz truck. 
-The Barnitz truck was a 36 Chevy, gray, gray in color, and it had Barnitz Mill painted on the side of the door on both sides. And it could hold a little over a hundred, hundred pound bags of flour. 
-That's probably about, that's probably about 10,000 pounds. 
-Yeah. So it must have been a pretty big truck. It was a flatbed. Was it a flatbed truck? 
-Flatbed with the head sides with the slanted top. 
-Yeah. Oh, when did you start like helping at the mill? 
-When did I start helping? Yeah. I think when I started, when I started, well I think they let me go along with my dad. A man told me one time, a friend of mine who lived in the area, he said, "Well you, you used to ride in the truck with your dad and you couldn't see out. You used to stand on the floor and hold on to the dash." So you could see. So I must have been pretty young. I don't remember. But I was, if I wasn't in school or had a chore to do or was in doing my paper route or whatever, I was with my dad in the mill, in the truck, out to the farms, hauling in wheat and corn, whatever. I was with him. 
-Now didn't you used to do stencil work on the grain bags? 
-Well, they paid me two, I think it was two cents, it was either two or three cents for each grain bag to stencil it Barnitz's Mills on it. They set me up in the warehouse with a stencil brush and a big thing full of ink and I'd lay the bag up there and put that metal stencil on, go over and lay them. I had to lay them separate for a while till it dried. But I, I think they give me two or three cents a bag to do that. I was about seven or eight when I done that. You've seen the one I had. 
-Yeah, the fire bag. Don't you still have the stencil? 
-Mrs. Lillich has that stencil. I'd like to have it, but I'd, they have it. It's, it was metal. It was, I think it was copper. But anyway, 
-I'm trying to get back, well, I got off a little topic there. I'm getting all over the place, but again, back to the railroad. Didn't you say there were hobo's? 
-Oh yeah. Yeah, and they knew my mother fed them. So they would, just during the war, there were a lot of hobo's. We called them bums and they would stop and knock on the door. Mother would go to the door and she had a set of dishes used only for them and she'd feed them. And they'd set out on the porch on the wood box and eat. She'd say, whenever you're finished, just set the dishes there on the wood box and they'd leave. But word got around. See, they'd pass each other. Hey, that lady up there will feed you stuff. So, you know, my mother, there was always something that she could whip up pretty fast. A lot of times they stopped when we were eating. They knew. 
-They knew at the time. 
-Somehow. Well, we always ate a regular time. 12 o'clock noon for lunch, dinner we called it, and five o'clock for supper. And that word got around. It'd pass along to one another. 
-Now they sat on the, I remember before that addition was put in the house that it had a balcony, right? The house had a balcony on it. 
-Yeah. 
-Now the porch, was that under the balcony? 
-Yes. The porch was under the balcony. 
-Was the floor on that, like concrete? Yeah, it's different now. 
-Oh, yeah, sadly. 
-It's a little different, it was. The outdoor cellar way was out in the weather. It was, rain hit them doors. 
-Yeah. Now wasn't there a door inside the house where you could come out from the basement and go directly into the house? 
-Well, you could come up out of the basement on the outside door and walk up one step and into the house, over the porch and into the house. 
-Now, was the mill, to get back to the mill topic, sorry that I'm getting all over the place, but was the mill powered by three turbines? 
-It was a turbine, a turbine wheel. 
-Now is that down and a on? 
-It's down. The water comes in and fell about 10 or 12 feet and hit the turbine and spun it. And it ran the gears that went clear up to all the stuff. That wheel, that turbine, run the mill and the warehouse at one time. There's a big cable went across the road to the warehouse. It was about 100 yards over there. And whenever the electric came up the Pine Road, they electrified the warehouse, kept the mill water powered and electrified the warehouse and tore that cable down. There's a picture of the mill with that big metal strip covering where that cable come out of the middle. 
-Did the mill ever have electric light in or was it all like lantern? 
-Well, it eventually got electric light in. I think about the same time that they electrified the warehouse. They put lights, a few lights and a couple plugs. They also had a gas pump there. When I was 16, Mrs. Bartlett said, "Ronald, you can buy your gas from us here if you wish." And I did because you know what? It was 16 cents a gallon. 
-Compared to today. Wow. Now, the gas pump. 
-I had a pump with myself and it was a... 
-It was a hand? 
-Hand crank, yeah. But it sat right there at the corner, right on the corner of the mill, toward the house. Toward the house and up Pine Road. 
-Oh, so it sat, was it like up against the mill or was it away from it? 
-It was right against the mill. And I'll bet you that tank's still on the ground there unless McCoy Brothers dug it out. 
-Well, they might not know about it. I don't know. Well, when we get that far, we'll go find out. Yeah. See if it's still there and then recreate it maybe. Try to see what else do we have. When did you stop working at the mill? Stenciling and all that. 
-Well, probably when Newhouser and Wright took it over and my, well, my dad was still there then. I don't know. I probably worked there at the mill until it actually closed up. I say worked. I thought it was playing, but I didn't get paid. I never got paid anything other than what I'd done with stenciling and stuff like that. I never got paid for. I wasn't an employee. So I think I was there the whole time even when Newhouser and Wright run it. They were good friends of mine. They got to be good friends. Mr. Wright, Morgan Wright, was married to Mr. Newhouser's daughter and he was a retired Naval officer. They had five children and I used a babysit down for Morgan Wright when they'd go. His wife would go out for whatever reason. I was doing stuff at the mill and warehouse even then. Probably not as much. 
-What was it like when the mill closed? 
-Well, it was sad to the farmers and all the people that got their cornmeal ground there because I mean people from miles around came to get their cornmeal ground there because it was a stone. I don't know. Even today, it's hard to find a place that grinds corn on a stone. Most of it now is a hammer mill. They call it a hammer mill. So yeah, it was sort of a downside to the community because the mill was, there was always somebody there pulled in with a wagon, a team of horses and they were getting them feed and whatever. 
-Now when they closed the mill, did they drain the mill race or was the mill pond and all that still full of water? 
-Well, not right away. McCoy Brothers did all that. After they bought the mill, they done all closed up and John McCoy sold all the stuff out of the mill, all the mechanical everything and that was the wrong thing to do. And Bill McCoy, I questioned him about it one time. He said I had nothing to do with that. It was John who sold the stuff out of the mill. So I only know what Bill told me. Bill and his wife and family and John, they all went to Barnitz Church. They were all friends. 
-But do we know anywhere where that equipment might have gone? Do we know where that equipment might have gone when he sold it? 
-Yeah. Who did that? 
-No, where it went, who he sold it to. 
-Oh, he said it went to Virginia. That's all I know. I don't know where Virginia, but they said it went to Virginia. That's what I was told, I wish I knew. 
-I mean, I think there still is a little bit of equipment left over inside of there that they couldn't get to, but most of it was probably sold. 
-Okay. 
-Now with the mill, when you look at it now, there's that concrete block in front of the water wheel hole. Was that always there or was that added by McCoy Brothers? 
-In front of the opening? 
-In front of the opening that big concrete slab. 
- That was always there. That was always there. And there were there were brown steel bars that went down so no pieces of wood that would float in there or whatever could get into the turbine. And my dad would take a fork that was made like a hook and get down once a week and pull all the crap that was up again then because it hindered the water from coming in it. So he'd clean he'd clean them bars at once a week. Like I said, my dad done, he'd done a little bit of everything. And when he would do that, oftentimes he would hook a catfish and bring it up. They were, well, the catfish like that water and they also like there was mud down there and so on to it. But he'd hook so he'd bring them home and my mother would skin them and fry them for supper. They were good. 
-Wow. So you think the turbine's still in the mill and it's pit? 
-The turbine as far as I know is still down there. 
-Now if you look at it. 
-I know one time I watched them something broke and it had to be taken to Hanover to get fixed. I rode along with my dad over there, but they pulled that turbine up out of there. I don't remember how. But they got it up out of there and he took it over Hanover and left it there and the mill wasn't run for several days, but they fixed it and dad went and brought it back and they put it back in. And it's down there quite a ways. 
-Like 10, 12 feet? 
-Yeah, something like that. 
-Wow. It's pretty far. 
-You had a, there was a big wheel about that big around that you turned to let the water, you'd open the gate and you could shut it off. You could turn it on and shut it off. 
-Was that inside the mill or outside? 
-Yeah. Well, when we'd go to do the corn mill, my dad and I in the evenings, he let me turn the wheel on. He let me go back. I could hardly turn. It turned pretty hard. There was a big wheel stood straight up and I'd open that. You, you turned it as far as you could and I'd open the gate up to let the water down to hit the turbine. And then before we'd go home, he'd say, we'll go turn it off. So I'd go back and turn it off. 
-Now, if you look at the mill, there's the front opening, but there's also an opening in the back. What was that for? Was that like a tail race? 
- That was for the tail race. The water went out through thereafter, went through the turbine. It went out and then it went down and back into the creek, right down along that road that goes down to the bridge. It went, the tail race run right down along there. So the water came directly out the back? Yeah. Yep. And all those other, the sawmill and everything else done the same thing. The tail race off of them all went back into the creek because the creek makes a big circle there. 
-Yeah. Now did the sawmill and all that run off of the tail race from the mill or did it run them? 
-No, it had its own, it had its own race. There were three of them. There's three of them came through that one went to the mill, one went to the sawmill, and one went to the cooper's mill. 
-So they all, all three of them came through those front gates? 
-Yeah. 
-That makes sense. 
-Yep. 
-Trying to think of what else to ask you. The village. Oh, the, yeah, the whole village, yeah. Well, what else, is there anything else in the village of Barnitz's other than church, schoolhouse, and all the mill stuff, the general store and all that? That was it, there's just all that? 
-Yeah. 
-So it's a small isolated area. 
-Yeah. 
-Now, what's the, trying to think, sorry. When was the railroad siding tore up? 
-When was it tore up? 
-Yeah, because it went, didn't, 
-Well, that was around the same time when the house was sold in the 50s, sometime in the 50s. And it was sold to the Breitzman? Yeah. 
-Yep. They used to use that siding. A lot of times a railroad car would get a, they called it a hot box. It would catch fire. The bearing. They were, those bearings were oiled by waste. They called it waste rags soaked in oil. And when they'd get dry enough, just at the right time, they sometimes catch fire. Well, they'd have to stop the train and the back that's in the siding and stop it right there on the side of the hill before it got back to the wash house. 
-Yeah. 
-And they'd come in and we always had a bucket there by the well, the old well. I don't think that's there anymore, is it, besides the wash house? 
-No, that's still there. We don't use it, but it's still there. 
-They'd pump water and take it up and throw it on out in the fire and hook up again and drive away. Then they'd come back later and somebody would bring fresh waste rags and take all that old stuff out and squirt oil in there and throw the rags in. They'd hook up to it and away it would go. But that was all done on that siding. 
-Wow. So would the railroad employees go to the general store at all? 
-Go to the store? 
-Yeah, would they? 
-Well, I'm sure they did. They would all, when the track workers came, they'd park their dinky on that siding and then at lunchtime they'd come down on the lawn, lean up again a tree or something, and they'd lunch. And I'd always be around because I'd always get a cookie or two from those railroad people. We knew them. They were people that lived in Mount Holly or whatever and worked for the railroad. That was the track crew for that section of track. There was a crew that had a section to take care of and then another crew done another section. But this dinky was a little gasoline
-powered thing on railroad wheels. And that's what they rode in, had all their tools and everything. Everything they needed. And a place for their lunch boxes and they all rode on it. It was like four or five of them. They'd sit on the side with their feet hanging down and the guy that was the boss would run the thing. It was pretty neat, a neat little deal. I got a ride on one one time. 
-Now was the road, was the Pine Road dirt at the time? 
-Pardon? 
-Was the Pine Road dirt at the time? It was dirt road when we moved there, but shortly after that they paved it. And that's when they banked the corner at the mill. Before that it was all level. Come up the Pine Road it was level going around that corner. Now there's a little hill goes down to the mill. That was all level. 
-Oh yeah. Yeah so that was all that. I'm trying to think. Did any of like whenever the mill shut down did any of the farmers move away? Or did they stay there? 
-No. When the mill shut down right around at times when Mrs. Barnitz's grandma died and everything was sold so farmers then could go wherever they wanted to to a mill or whatever. That's what they did. 
-So when grandma Barnitz's died what did Mrs. Barnitz's do with Elisha? Well she moved to the property across from where Barbara Lillich lives down the lane. That's where she lived when she died and Elisha was with her. He lived in the above the garage at that place. 
-When did she pass away? 
-I think he was in his 80s when he passed away but all that's up there on that on those stones in the ground as a date. 
-What about Mrs. Barnitz's? Yeah. When did she die? 
-I don't know exactly the date. It was in the 60s. It was in the 60s sometime because yeah it was after 62 because I'd done work for her there and we didn't move one up on the Pine Road until 62. I think I'm right on yeah because my youngest son was two whenever we moved there. 62. So it was after that because I lived there when I did work for her at that house. I'm gonna go up there. I'm gonna write all that all them dates down off of them stones. 
-Document them. What else is there? Did the Barnitz's family whenever they had the mill did they like who did I I can't word this did they have any contracts to sell flour to anybody like with labels and all that? 
-Yeah they, they sold flour to the state and I guess anybody wanted a lot of a lot of a lot of people a lot of people in that area they use luxury flour around Carlisle and Mount Holly because all the stores sold i. 
-Yeah so all the stores in the area were stocked at that yeah yeah I do have one last question for you yeah on the side of the mill where there's those two boards on the foundation were those doors? 
-Yeah. 
-Well I believe I'm pretty much out of questions now 
-Okay. For you Mr. Brehm. 
-You had some good ones there. 
-Yes well thank you for your time 
-Yeah well thanks Henry that was a good that was a good interview you had a lot of good questions right down there.