Seemingly Flawed Flume/Sluice Hypothesis

The challenge we have with the rock piles is to figure out what they were used for. One possibility is that they were somehow associated with the Witt sawmill that is shown on the 1841 Johnson map (below, next image). If they were related to the mill, we haven't figured out what they were used for. The following thoughts are provided not because I think they are in any way correct theories, but simply to get the reader thinking about what the rock piles could have been used for. Click here to see an 1835 map that also shows the Witt sawmill.

The photo below is included to schematically illustrate how a flume or sluice might have hypothetically been mounted on the rock stacks. Possible uses might have been:

  • A flume to provide water to an undershot mill wheel located above the cliff, or an overshot wheel located over the cliff (but we haven't yet observed any remains of water race that came down to this location, or any evidence of a sawmill near the rock piles, and it seems as if the creek itself would have made a better water source for a mill).
  • A log chute or flume to slide logs down to a dammed up creek to float the logs to the Witt sawmill mill that shows up in this general area on the 1841 Johnson map (but we haven't found this hypothetical dam or the mill location either, and don't know if a water flow would have been needed to allow the logs to slip downhill) Even worse for this flawed theory, Mike searched below the rock stacks, and found nothing. There are no level areas there at all except for the road (Matthew lane), and it is only about six feet wide. The area below the rock piles is very rugged and rocky, and would not be a place someone would very likely pick for a mill.
  • A placer mining sluice, but I don't know for sure that sluices were used for anything but placer mining of gold (due to its high specific gravity), and we haven't yet identified any water channel coming down to this location, and I doubt that there were placer deposits on the hillside, since as I understand it, placer deposits were left by flowing water in a river or stream. Why would a sluce need to be at that working height? Why not just put it on the ground, or on a couple of easy to build log sawhorses or log cribs? On the other hand, maybe rocks are so thickly strewn and so quick and easy to gather some places in Southampton township that it is easier to pile them up in a stack than it is to manually saw (or chop), bore and pin logs together, or to saw/chop enough logs to build a crib.

    L. Dietle
    September, 2009

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