Yates Mill

Yates Mill is a fully restored, circa 1756 gristmill located five miles (8 km) south of downtown Raleigh, North Carolina. It is the centerpiece of Historic Yates Mill County Park, in central Wake County. The park features the restored mill; a visitor center with a museum focused on milling and on the natural history of the area, classrooms, an auditorium and space for research conducted by North Carolina State University faculty and students; a 20acre lake; and extensive hiking trails. The park is managed as a native wildlife refuge with a mission to study and interpret the park's cultural, natural and agricultural heritage.HistoryYates Mill, one of the oldest buildings in Wake County, is the region’s only surviving operable gristmill. For nearly 200 years the water-powered mill produced lumber, milled corn and wheat, and carded wool. The land on which the mill is situated was surveyed for Samuel Pearson in October 1756, and granted to him by the Earl of Granville, one of the North Carolina colony’s Lord Proprietors. The original mill was built around at that time. Pearson steadily increased his land holdings, and owned more than 600acre at the time of his death in 1802. In 1819, accumulated debts forced Pearson’s son, Simon, to sell the mill and its surrounding acreage at a sheriff’s auction. William Boylan, a prominent Raleigh businessman and director of the State Bank, bought the property, and over the next 30 years modernized the mill several times, adding a sawmill in the 1840s.In 1853 Thomas Briggs, John Primrose and James Penny acquired the mill. A decade later, in the midst of the Civil War, the partners sold the mill and surrounding 94acre to Phares and Roxanna Yates, James Penny’s son-in-law and daughter. Penny’s involvement in the murder of a Mr. Franklin may have brought on the sale. According to legend, Franklin was a Northern sympathizer who Penny killed for not paying a $700 mill debt. In 1865, Franklin’s widow supposedly told Federal troops occupying Raleigh that her husband’s death was due to his support for the Union. The soldiers tried to burn the mill by setting fire to the entrance. Charred wooden beams today attest to the unsuccessful attempt.