The Breneman-Turner Mill

     In 1800, a Mennonite pioneer known as Abraham Breneman settled north of Harrisonburg along the west fork of Linville Creek near the village of Edom.  He soon diverted water from the creek to support a two-story mill that he constructed from area timber and bricks fired from local clay.  By the time of the Civil War, the Breneman Mill and the surrounding farm was owned by George and Hannah Shaver.  As an essential form of agricultural infrastructure, mills were the primary targets of Sheridan’s 1864 Burning of the Shenandoah Valley.  

Breneman-Turner Mill

     As Union troops moved down the Valley from Harrisonburg, they followed Linville Creek north to Broadway, setting fires to the numerous mills and barns that dotted the landscape.  As one of the largest mills in Rockingham County, Wenger’s Mill set a blaze that could be seen for miles.  When Isaac Wenger confronted the burning party, a Union officer allowed the mill owner to rescue the barrels of flour from the flames.  The soldiers were astonished by Wenger’s determination when he rolled out over a dozen barrels in just a few minutes.  Despite his efforts, the officer stated that it was too much, and he ordered his men to destroy all but three of the barrels.  Just miles away, the Breneman Mill nearly suffered the same fate.  

     At more than seventy years-old and sick in bed, George Shaver was completely helpless to defend his farm and mill from the approaching Union troops.  With their livelihood at stake, his seventy-seven year-old wife, Hannah, attacked the flames with her broom.  She encountered several burning parties throughout the day and managed to run them all off before the flames grew too large for her to extinguish.  Despite her efforts, a group of soldiers successfully set fire to a nearby barn.  When the flames threatened to jump over to the mill, Mrs. Shaver blew into a tin alarm horn as a final act of desperation.  Isaac Wenger’s brother, Joseph, heard the alarm and rushed to her aid.  While the barn burned, the two of them were able to monitor the mill and extinguish the airborne cinders that threatened to reignite it.  The Breneman Mill was one of the few to survive the Burning of 1864, and it is the only pre-Civil War mill that still stands in Rockingham County.                   

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SOURCES:

Heatwole, John L. The Burning: Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley. Charlottesville, Virginia: Rockbridge Publishing, 1998.