Millstone of 1834 is silent witness to early years

Coarse millstone at bottom center testifies to long Grand Rapids

Year after year, in cold weather or hot, people brought their grain to the mill near this location on the Grand River to run it through the rough surface of the rotating millstones to produce flour suitable for baking bread and other skillet or oven-made treats. Doubtless there is a full story about how the stones came to be (quarried locally, or transported ready made from another location) and how builders harnessed the river before its flow was controlled and it rose and fell with weather and seasons of the year. As well as stones and building, there is probably an interesting story about how a miller or millers gained training and experience before arriving on the scene. Once all the elements were in place, there remained only the matter of spreading the word among settlers and travelers passing this way that milling services were now in operation. Then with bags or bins of grain for the milling to produce flour, the farmer or merchant had to protect the grain in some sort of container before making use of it, day after day.

Looking at the silent stones in their present location near the east wall of the Grand Rapids Public Museum, overlooking the once untamed, unharnessed river, it is hard to imagine all the years these stones rotated while tons and tons of grain passed through to be transformed into flour. Countless souls were raised on the flour from these stones, from earliest solid food until the person's deathbed and the last morsel of bread tasted on this side of mortality. This one piece of technology was a common denominator for a majority of  local residents and those who bought the ready-ground flour that was distributed to stores in the surrounding county or counties. The sound of grinding stones and associated waterwheel machinery will have been the soundtrack to many people living nearby. Some of the particular facts are recorded on a bronze plaque attached to the stones on display.

FIRST MILL STONES (transcribed text, below)

 ...brought to Grand Rapids and placed in mill on Indian Mill Creek about 1834, removed by John Ball for a horse block in 1867 and donated by his heirs to the Kent Scientific Museum. Tablet placed by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

In the age of gas-powered automobiles transitioning reluctantly to electric vehicles, the mention of Horse Block may be baffling. Judging from the height of the mill stones, Mr. Ball took the decommissioned geological mass as a convenience to step from ground level up to a position closer the the horse's saddle, hence the name 'horse block'.

In this artifact intersects so many features of modern and ancient life. The connection to grain hearkens back to the Fertile Crescent where wild forms of wheat and barley trace their origins and the association of calorific surplus with permanent settlements, law codes and armed forces under the command of religious, political, and/or military heads. Hand in hand with grain cutting is grain grinding, first at the household, "as needed" scale, but later in organized and mechanized scale. Thousands of years later, the lessons of best grinding stone, best sources of power, and best varieties of grain for a given soil and temperature condition all came together in these stones at this place at this time. Prayers for [Lord God, may thou] "give us our daily bread" may be far less often spoken in 2022 than in 1822, but bread still does figure in to many city residents' routine variety of foods eaten throughout the year, although almost all of the flour is baked in factories and a few local bakeries, rather than by hand at home.

Even when the service life of these gritty stones ended, they were still useful to Mr. Ball and his horse for many years. By looking at traces of long-ago times like these mill stones some of the people and the lives they lived comes back to life. In this way the material culture that lingers long after the original makers and users have gone can accompany later generations into years to come. Not only does a little of the past live now in the present, but the reverse may be true, too: some of today was already existing when those long-ago people went about their business, following their routines, adapting to innovations that appeared, and dreaming of some indefinite time ahead that they themselves would not live to see but which their efforts - whether wise or foolish - would have consequences among people alive now in 2022.