Volume 4, Number 4 - Summer 1971
The Joseph P. Lyon’s Mill
By W. D. "Bill" Cameron
August 6, 1971
The Joseph P. Lyons Mill, known as the Old Jackson Mill, is located on Spring Branch which empties into Beaver Creek at a point approximately ten miles southwest of Ava in Douglas County Missouri.
Joseph P. Lyons homesteaded the land which included the mill site in 1820 during the Presidency of James Buchanan. Joseph Lyons built at this site what the writer has reason to believe was one of the first Grist Mills to be operated in Missouri—Bollinger at Bufordsville, Missouri had part of the foundation laid in 1799.
Joe Lyons, as he was known, operated in a small way until 1847. At that time he saw the need for expanding the mill’s capacity so he travelled to St. Louis, Missouri, and bought a Run of 48" French Buhrs. These were transported to the mill site from St. Louis by oxen. As a brief history, the French Buhrs were quarried in segments in France, put together with a stone cement, and banded with iron. They were then shipped in sailboats to New Orleans, Louisiana, and on up the Mississippi to St. Louis where the stones were assembled into a stand called a "Run of Buhrs." The stones were in operation at the mill site until approximately 1926. They remained idle until May, 1971, at which time these stones were given to The School of the Ozarks at Point Lookout, Missouri, by the owner, Mr. W. J. Caldwell. They will add much to the Memorial Mill of the Ozarks, which is soon to be built on the campus of The School of the Ozarks.
Perhaps to those who think long will come the knowledge that in the dust of grinding mills our America had both birth travail and glory. Our thoughts that God’s Freedom is to be earned and held through hard work, attaining the privilege of being independent, is perhaps taught by the slow running Buhrs— "Never crowd a man, a beast, or a machine."
Joseph P. Lyons was killed by a bushwhacker in 1862. He was laid to rest in the Old Butler Cemetery. The marked grave is a very short distance from the Grist Mill where he played the part of "Martha’s Son" and served his fellow men, his community, and his country by the labor of his hands, heart, and brain.
His sons followed him in the operation of the mill and were followed by many names: Lyons to Harless, to Frank Hart, to Jackson—Mill named for him. The date of this sale was 1888—to Bloomer, to Jim Jenkins, to Thomas, to Whittenberg, to Tom Cox, to T. L. Jones, who owned the Grist Mill when it ceased to operate in or about 1926.
Written for White River Valley Historical Society to be included with stories of other old mills located in proximity to The Trail of Tears, starting with Bollinger in Cape County Missouri and if possible ending at an old Indian Tribal Treaty Mill on the Illinois River near Tahlequah, Oklahoma.
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