Once a site of a distillery, city-owned property now to be preserved for National Park Service
By Tom Wilmoth

More than 100 years ago, 13 acres the city of Bedford now owns in the county next to the National Park Service property at the Peaks of Otter was touted as having "very valuable distillery fixtures" that had been preserved for future use.

Though the distillery is now long gone, the property isn't, and action taken by Bedford City Council last week should serve to preserve the property for generations to come.
The 1885 advertisement for the land that the city has agreed to sell to the Western Virginia Land Trust. The distillery has long since disappeared.


And that's just fine with a group from the Bedford City/County Museum who have researched the property, and the adjacent property that the Western Virginia Land Trust also acquired for NPS, while preparing a book on mills in the area.

"We're glad to hear where it's going," said Jackie Field of Bedford. "We're very happy to hear what they propose to do with it. We would love for the Park Service to have it."

Field, June Goode and Carole Lacy are among several who have been researching that property as part of work on a book on area mills in the county. The project began a couple of years ago and council's recent action to sell the property to WVLT brought the interests of the two groups together.

For Field, the research can be addicting. She enjoys interviewing the long-time residents of the area. "They've all got a story to tell. ...The more (information) you can find the more you want."

<*B>The property

<*P>A copy of a notice of sale of the property from March 14, 1885, still circulates around city offices and with local historians. Back then the property was slated to be sold along with a distillery.

A public auction was set to be held for the 13 3/4 acre tract which had been owned by McLeod Kasey, "This is a very valuable property, situated at the Peaks of Otter, on the south side thereof, and consists of a Grist Mill and valuable distillery improvements," the notice stated. The notice went on to state that in 1883 "there was manufactured at the distillery upwards of 3,000 gallons of excellent whiskey. There is not in the county a more valuable site for the business."

Kasey had at one time served as mayor of the city. He apparently died at an early age.

The terms for sale were $225 cash. The notice added that, though not part of the sale, the property contained the distillery fixtures consisting of two stills - one 120 gallons capacity, and one of 220 gallons capacity.

Along the way, the city came in possession of the property owning the property since 1888 until agreeing to sell the tract for $20,000 to WVLT last week. The Land Trust plans to resell the property to the NPS when funds become available.

<*B>Two mills

<*P>Field became interested in the property while searching for a mill that had been owned by a distant family member, Leroy Coleman. She learned that there was a grist mill on the property and, after seeing pictures, thought she had found, on the property owned by the city, the Coleman Mill she had been looking for.

Through additional research, however, she learned that the mill on the city property was not the Coleman Mill, but rather the Horsley Mill. She would later learn that the Coleman Mill had been located on an adjacent tract of land that the WVLT also recently purchased to pass on to the NPS. At one time the property had all been part of one tract of land.

The Horsley Mill, on the property the city owned, is well-preserved. It was established by Nicholas Horsley, who had acquired the property from a daughter of Leroy Coleman. Horsley, according to research provided by Field and Lacy, fell on hard times and sold the property to Kasey.

Since then it has belonged to the city. And remnants of the Horsley Mill remain.

Field and others from the museum would like to see the NPS build trails so that the site of the mill and what is left of it could be visited.

"They (NPS) could do a trail, since they own the land all around it," Field said.

Mills played an important part of life for county residents a century or more ago, according to Lacy, Field's cousin. She had helped with the research which revealed that there had been two mills in that area.

"The mills worked on a regular basis year round because the wheat and the corn would stay better preserved in its granular state (until needed)," she said. "You didn't go to the mill once a year, you went on a regular basis."

Those utilizing the Mill paid a toll, a portion of the grain that was ground up, to the mill owner. Lacy added that the mills in the county played a role in establishing the road system. Many of the early roads in this county appear to have been developed by residents asking, "'How (do I) get from where I live to my closest mill?' They were very concerned about keeping them open," she said.

Stoney Fork Creek provided the needed water supply to run both the Coleman and Horsley mills.

<*B>The Book

<*P>June Goode, who has written and contributed to several books on area history, believes it's important to keep records of the past. "The book (on area mills) is for the museum. I've done some research. I have asked people who knew about a mill if they would write it up because they know a whole lot more about it than I do," she said.

The process of collecting the information has been slow, but she believes enough information has been gathered for an opening volume on grist mills in the area.

"They need to be preserved," she said of the stories from past history. "If you don't, it's going to get away from us."

Among the stories Field reveals in her research is one from W. Harrison Daniel, a professor of history at the University of Virginia, who is a great-great grandson of Leroy Coleman, who owned the property and in 1842 petitioned the county for permission to build a grist and saw mill. Daniel, in his story, says that Leroy Coleman cut and shaped a stone from his land on the Peaks of Otter mountain. The stone was pulled by oxen to Liberty, sent to Richmond for an inscription, and then sent to the building site of the Washington Monument.

<*B>Preservation

<*P>Preservation is at the heart of all of the research and work - both on the stories of the county's mills for the book and other historical work being completed by area residents.

"The county is going to see major changes in the next 20 years," Lacy said. "There are opportunities that will arise from time to time to save what we have."

But those opportunities must be seized, she added.

"The opportunity will never come again. Bedford is sitting at a crossroads to preserve some of (its history) for the next generation. It's fallen on this generation to do that.

"Progress is coming and it cannot be stopped. But progress does not have to wipe out heritage and history."