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was leased from the canal company. With the Liberty-Bethel turnpike nearby and seventy-ton shipping capacity along the canal, the mill business was projected to be a success.
THE WAR YEARS
With the War Between the States looming and the twenty-year-old canal company already on the brink of ruin, the new year of 1861 was not the best time to be starting a business. The Cause soon became first priority and Robert enlisted in the Confederacy, serving as a lieutenant with Kirkpatrick’s Amherst Light Artillery.
In May 1862, Lieutenant Scott declined reenlisting with Kirkpatrick’s Artillery. He may have received an exemption as he was working as a
contractor on the canal three months later. Canal men, blacksmiths, foundry men, and like tradesmen were often offered deferments if their skills were important to Southern supply and transportation. It is a good possibility that Scott served with home guard defenses in the Salt Creek area.
Edward Lorraine, then chief engineer for the canal company, happened to
live on Trent’s Ferry Road in Bedford County during the war years. Lorraine knew Scott as a contractor working on repairs and maintenance of the canal above Lynchburg. In 1865, Lorraine issued a report to company directors, listing manufacturing sites and telling of water power being furnished at Bethel “for six pair of burr stones.” This might have been Mr. Scott’s mill as seen on the
Photo courtesy of Jeanne Markham
1864 Gilmer map of Bedford County. Lorraine’s statement may be interpreted as “water power enough for six pair of stones.”
A mill with three pairs of stones
was considered a large commercial enterprise, while a custom or neighborhood mill usually ground corn with one set of stones. Burr stones were expensive—quarried, and imported exclusively for flour manufacture. Scott’s mill does not appear to have been a large business, and it probably included a sawmill operation as well.
Robert’s brother James sold his interest in the business to Hugh Roy Scott in 1862. Hugh Roy may have been a brother or a cousin.
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