Chain of Title: An Adventure To Uncover the 350-Year Legacy Of The Old Grist Mill, by Christopher Scott, 2024. 335 pages.
While a review of this book might seem to be a bit of a stretch for a canal newsletter, Chain Of Title is worthy of your time if you have ever looked at a house or building and wondered, “What is the history of that place?”
Christopher Scott purchased a decaying four-story grist mill that was built along the Pequea Creek in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. After renovations that converted the mill into his home, he began the journey to uncover the history of the property and building. This began like many investigations do with folklore and “established” history. He notes that during construction, strangers would often walk into his home and share their knowledge and websites shared conflicting histories about the mill. Plus, the reconstruction itself gave some clues about the building, and a date stone over the main door gave its own history. How could a date stone be wrong?
Scott notes, “Luckily, I am an open-minded person who is willing to adjust my view in light of new facts. I was expecting to dispel some of the fodder provided by the online grist mill enthusiasts: after all, with contradicting stories there could only be one right answer, and the others would thus be disproven. I was, however, surprised by the extent to which everything I thought I knew would need to be reevaluated, and I needed to allow myself to let go of ideas that I had taken to be solid truth – even irrefutable facts.”
Dr. Karen Gray, the noted historian of the C&O, coined the term “zombie history.” She described these as historical “facts” that would not die, no matter how many times they were disproven and killed off. Typically, someone years, decades or centuries ago wrote what they thought or heard, and from there, that information is shared over and over as fact. People cite these sources since they are old and thus must be true, without doing their own investigation.
In Chain Of Title, Scott throws out all those facts, folklore, and opinions, and begins at the beginning with the Native Americans use of the land and who was living along the Pequea when the first European settlers showed up. He then moves onto how William Penn was given the land that would become Pennsylvania, and then works forward through history to the present. In each chapter he narrows down his focus as the land changes hands, parts are given or sold off, and in the end, he ends up looking at his current lot and building. Along the way he is able to confirm or disprove all those bits of zombie history.
It is difficult to make such a journey into a great page turner, but Scott is skilled enough to keep the reader interested. I always say that those who do family genealogy have an audience of one, themselves, as no one wants to hear about your ancestors family history. And, this is basically a genealogical look at an old mill that is now a home. However, the book can serve as a good text on how to conduct such an in-depth research for anyone who is wishing to go on such a mission for themselves.
You can find the book on Amazon.
PS. Combine this book with Mills on the Tsatsawassa by Philip Lord Jr., (1983) and you will be well set to begin your research.
