I remember reading an interesting book in High School John Goffe’s Mill, by George Woodbury (New York: Norton, 1948). I turned it up from the bottom of my collection to see what it had to say about how the miller was paid:
“Taking toll has been the custom of gristmillers since the beginning. A certain measure of grain is brought to the mill to be ground. The miller grinds it to flour and retains a percentage (the toll) for his service. The toll, sometimes called the ‘pottle,’ varied between a quarter and a fifth of the grist. In this connection there is insight into the ethics of country milling in the instruction of one miller to his son: ‘Never take toll from a widow’s grist, or from a man bringing grain on his back.’ ” (pp. 238-239)
Woodbury still had the original Mill Books back to 1754. He gives an interesting account of how the books were balanced (pages 237-238): The miller would grind for someone, say the blacksmith, who would shoe his horse later (2½ shillings), and each transaction was recorded. The balance would then go back and forth between the two, each being ahead at different times; whenever the accounts happened to balance a line would be marked through the accounts, and a new one begun. There was one account in his books that ran for twenty-two years before it was eventually settled, and under the scratched out list are the words: “This acct. settled from the beginning of Time til now. J. Goffe. I. Orr.” Woodbury remarks that credit was liberal; everyone knew everyone else, and where they lived; and no one was ever too poor to pay eventually in either goods or work.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Here is an account from an editress telling of her first experience with a customer, and how Woodbury got the story of the mill published in the Atlantic Monthly. (Note the prejudice against men with beards.)
“My instructions were very simple: one, get rid of them as quickly and as civilly as possible; two, never let a poet read aloud; and three, if it's a man with a beard, throw him out. So of course, my first customer was a man with a beard. It was a very neat beard of good quality and quite becoming. Everything about him was unmistakably "Harvard junior faculty." As a Radcliffe graduate, I saw Harvard as taking precedence over that beard. So I invited him in, gave him a chair, asked what he had in mind. Sure enough he began by saying,"I must confess, I am ex-Harvard faculty." He'd rehabilitated an old mill which was thought to have been founded by John Goff, one of the two regicides who condemned Charles I to death. The British ultimately chased both of them all around New England and never caught them. He was gratified that I knew who John Goff was. John Goff's mill was now in order and turning out cornmeal, and he wondered if perhaps The Atlantic would be interested in hearing about it. Struck me that we certainly would be. So I told him to send in the manuscript, and off he went. Then I realized that the first thing I had done at The Atlantic was disobey all the rules.”
She also read and liked The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come, by one of our best Kentucky writers, and interviewed Hemingway (a man with a beard) — see what comes of avoiding prejudice and breaking the rules?
Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/08/plainterview.htm
This is an Archival Quality Communication
25 Feb 2008
“Taking toll has been the custom of gristmillers since the beginning. A certain measure of grain is brought to the mill to be ground. The miller grinds it to flour and retains a percentage (the toll) for his service. The toll, sometimes called the ‘pottle,’ varied between a quarter and a fifth of the grist. In this connection there is insight into the ethics of country milling in the instruction of one miller to his son: ‘Never take toll from a widow’s grist, or from a man bringing grain on his back.’ ” (pp. 238-239)
Woodbury still had the original Mill Books back to 1754. He gives an interesting account of how the books were balanced (pages 237-238): The miller would grind for someone, say the blacksmith, who would shoe his horse later (2½ shillings), and each transaction was recorded. The balance would then go back and forth between the two, each being ahead at different times; whenever the accounts happened to balance a line would be marked through the accounts, and a new one begun. There was one account in his books that ran for twenty-two years before it was eventually settled, and under the scratched out list are the words: “This acct. settled from the beginning of Time til now. J. Goffe. I. Orr.” Woodbury remarks that credit was liberal; everyone knew everyone else, and where they lived; and no one was ever too poor to pay eventually in either goods or work.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Here is an account from an editress telling of her first experience with a customer, and how Woodbury got the story of the mill published in the Atlantic Monthly. (Note the prejudice against men with beards.)
“My instructions were very simple: one, get rid of them as quickly and as civilly as possible; two, never let a poet read aloud; and three, if it's a man with a beard, throw him out. So of course, my first customer was a man with a beard. It was a very neat beard of good quality and quite becoming. Everything about him was unmistakably "Harvard junior faculty." As a Radcliffe graduate, I saw Harvard as taking precedence over that beard. So I invited him in, gave him a chair, asked what he had in mind. Sure enough he began by saying,"I must confess, I am ex-Harvard faculty." He'd rehabilitated an old mill which was thought to have been founded by John Goff, one of the two regicides who condemned Charles I to death. The British ultimately chased both of them all around New England and never caught them. He was gratified that I knew who John Goff was. John Goff's mill was now in order and turning out cornmeal, and he wondered if perhaps The Atlantic would be interested in hearing about it. Struck me that we certainly would be. So I told him to send in the manuscript, and off he went. Then I realized that the first thing I had done at The Atlantic was disobey all the rules.”
She also read and liked The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come, by one of our best Kentucky writers, and interviewed Hemingway (a man with a beard) — see what comes of avoiding prejudice and breaking the rules?
Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/08/plainterview.htm
This is an Archival Quality Communication
25 Feb 2008
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