Gilmer History - Ira Stanley Mill
By Lawrence L. Stanley
A man named Ira (Arie) Stanley, son of old Swinfield Stanley, was born in North Carolina in 1839 and came to Georgia in 1842. He went back to North Carolina, married and raised a large family and brought them all to Fannin County in 1898. (Swinfield was the one born in 1839. Ira was born in 1882 - jws)
Ira Stanley built the mill on Falls Branch, which runs down the side of the mountain known as Rocky Knob. The mill was located on the Gilmer County side of the line. The branch may have been named for the Falls family. There is a story in one of the writer's books about Dock, Witt and Wash Falls, and the part these three men played in the Civil War.
Ira Stanley and his two sons Warfield and Garfield, who are the brothers of Lewis Stanley, helped to build this mill. It had an overshot wheel that was 20 feet high, powered by water from a fo-bay built of lumber that was ten feet deep. Lewis helped his father with this mill in about 1938.
About one-fourth mile upstream from the mill there were some falls in the Falls Branch that are some of the most beautiful in Gilmer County. Lewis says that his father had a "working" where the neighbors helped build the dam, mill race and millhouse. The men went up to the falls on this branch and laid out a ditch around the mountainside, and dug up tree stumps with mattocks and shovels. When they came to a hollow they went up into it and around the other side to keep the water on level so it would run the ditch. In a nearby blacksmith shop, they made a scrape to push the dirt out of the ditch which was pulled by oxen.
Lewis remembers one day when he was grinding corn at the mill that the whole side of the filled fo-bay burst from the water pressure, and the rush of water just missed the millhouse and dug a big hole in the ground. He says he would have been killed had the water hit the millhouse.
He also recalled another day when he was standing near the shaft of the big overshot wheel that was run by gears. One of the big metal set screws that was fastened to the shaft caught his new overalls, and he had to grab the mill hopper with both hands and hang on while the big screw tore all of his clothes from his body. He relates that he went home in his birthday suit. His father told him had he not had big strong arms he would have been dragged to his death.
Ira Stanley sold this mill in about 1939 to Floyd Davenport, and the writer in his boyhood days knew both Ira and Floyd. There are signs of the millhouse and the fo-bay at this millsite on Falls Branch in Gilmer County.
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