Volume 5, Number 2 - Winter 1973-74
THE KIMBERLINGS OF SILVER LAKE MILL
by Mary Scott Hair
In Northeastern Stone County there’s an interesting place called Silver Lake. Not as pretty now, so far as scenic beauty is concerned, as in days of yore, but still enough so that a visit to the area always yields surprises to the nature enthusiast.
For more than a century it was a favorite picnic spot. Just the right distance from anywhere, if you were traveling by horse and buggy, to get there in time to spread a picnic lunch without hurrying too much. And the trip home was always made the long way ‘round!
An old mill on Silver Lake Branch added to the historical value, and the natural beauty, of the area. From the time flood waters took their toll, but damages were repaired, and time marched on. A mill on Silver Lake Branch remained.
Remained, that is, until July 1, 1973. When the news spread, mostly by word of mouth since communications were disrupted, that the old mill had gone out with a great wall of water that rushed down the valley after a flash flood, it was greeted with exclamations of dismay. Surely not! A mill had stood there for more than a hundred years. It was hard to believe!
Eye witnesses saw giant sycamores uprooted, buildings washed off foundations, bridges and roads washed out. But the main concern of the whole area was that the old mill was no more. Along with it, the milldam and the levy washed out. When things began returning to normal, just a small stream of water was left meandering down through the area where so much clear water made up the millpond on Silver Lake Branch.
History repeats itself, but this time it is unlikely that the mill will be rebuilt. Time has run out. With the help of persons "in the know," I have attempted to establish some facts about the mill, and the people who owned and loved it. Most of this material was furnished by Mrs. Richard
Robinson, now deceased, who wrote me a letter while I was putting together our Stone County Centennial history. I am glad I kept her letter. Mrs. Robinson was Iva Cloud, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ambros Cloud who owned the mill for a number of years. She grew up loving the mill. Mrs. Bess Wright Hanafin supplied much information. She is Fred Kimberling’s cousin.
Relatives agree that whether the name ends with a "g", or the "g" is left off, all are members of the same family which, at one time, lived in the northern part of Stone County. The ferry Kimberlings left here at an early date. Davis Kimberlin, who left off the "g", in 1858 or thereabouts settled 120 acres of land through which Silver Lake Branch flowed. Before he came there he worked in a mill on Finley River, married and had two children: David and Elizabeth. Apparently his wife had died before he came to Silver Lake Branch. I was not able to find out anything about her. The children were quite small at the time of the move and for some time father and children lived alone. Then Mr. Kimberlin married a widow, Mrs. Anna Morris, whose twins were named Robert and Susan Morris. Their story was pretty much like that of any other family of that day.
Just after the Civil War, Mr. Kimberlin decided a mill would add extra income, and be a service to the area. In 1865 he began building the mill on Silver Lake Branch. This first mill was a two-story building which showed a trend toward progress in that early day. It had a metal water wheel and a wooden forebay where the water wheel was located. The reservoir was 10 feet wide, 15 feet long and the walls were 10 feet high. When it was full of water it was so clear one could see the bottom of the structure. A wooden dam, with a dirt and rock levy, was first erected.
The millpond was a favorite rendezvous for water snakes. Relatives, reminiscing, say that they
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have seen the old rock levy covered with snakes out sunning, hundreds of them, and they looked big enough to swallow a person! Lacking other ways to get rid of the slithering creatures that seemed to be taking things, mill hands used sharpened sticks to harpoon the monsters and many of them were killed in that manner.
Davis Kimberlin died in 1888. In 1892, Ambros Cloud, who had married Mr. Kimberlin’s stepdaughter, Susan Morris, bought the place and the mill from Kimberlin heirs. He began a series of mill improvements, starting first with the building of a rock dam. In 1906 the old wooden forebay was torn out and a concrete one put in. And some years later the levy was strengthened by a mixture of concrete and the levy built around the pond.
From the first the mill did a thriving business. It had the name of making the best corn meal of any mill in the country. Corn meal was its specialty. And while flour, too, was a product up until about 1897, it never did attain the popularity of corn meal made at Kimberlin mill. when machinery for sifting flour became damaged, it cost more to fix it than the miller thought it would be worth. So, flour gave way to other products. Chopped corn for feed became an added specialty, and the mill screened wheat and oats for the farmers.
There was a terrible drouth around the turn of the century. Corn was mostly nubbins and not very big ones at that. Mrs. Hanafin told me this true story, when she said that her Aunt Suse often ran the mill, and made good meal. Seems that Mrs. Hanafin’s mother ,"Aunt" Missouri Wright, had saved nubbins and carefully shelled the corn to send to mill for meal to be ground. To the lads trusted with the precious corn she also gave some money to pay for having the meal ground, instead of giving the toll as was the custom. When it was time to pay for the grinding, the money was refused. Said Aunt Suse, "Tell your Maw I like cornbread, too." and she took the toll.
Flood time, in 1916, washed the foundation out from under the mill and it toppled over. High waters had come and gone other years, each time weakening the faithful old mill. And when flood waters came, they took their toll.
A son of Ambros Cloud’s, Ellis, who had grown up at the Kimberlin Mill, built a one-story replacement. It had just one set of buhrs to begin with and made corn meal and chopped corn. When corn meal became a luxury during World War two, the Hurley Farmers Exchange considered themselves fortunate in being able to obtain some fine, home grown white corn which was sent to Kimberlin Mill. It was ground into the same brand of corn meal the old mill had specialized in making throughout the years. What a scramble, when the word got ‘round, everybody rushed to buy the meal! Sure made good cornbread.
The place remained in the Cloud family from 1892 until 1945 when it was sold to some people from Springfield who modernized the place. A concrete block springhouse has been built close to the house. The spring, for more than a hundred
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years, was the stopping place for travelers and always they’d remark how clear and cold the water was. The Kimberlins and Clouds, lacking ice boxes, were not without a substitute for waters from the spring kept milk and butter cold in the hottest weather.
Just west of the mill-site a hill, some quarter of a mile high and a mile long, rises steeply upward. In past springtimes every known wild flower native to this area could be found blooming there. There were flowering shrubs and trees of every known variety and some never identified.
There is an attractive sign near the house which says "Silver Lake Ranch." Mr. George Marmon, owner and operator of Silver Lake Ranch, passed away a few years ago, and the place he loved misses him. I deeply regret that I did not accept the invitation he once made me, saying that if I would let him know when I was coming, he would get some papers out his box at the Bank that he was certain I would find interesting. "Too busy," and now it’s too late. He would have been grieved to see the old mill go.
Up the valley from the mill site about a half a mile there’s a pretty, well kept church. Through the years it has had different names, such as white Church, Little White Church, and now, since students from Central Bible Institute in Springfield, Missouri, hold regular Sunday services there, it is called Pleasant Valley Assembly of God. Part of the spacious churchyard is a cemetery, shaded by giant cedar trees. It, too, has been known by various names, such as Cloud cemetery, White cemetery, and more than likely, in the beginning at least, it was called Kimberlin cemetery. The oldest date on a gravestone is that of Davis Kimberlin.
Part of the cemetery is in bad shape. The section next to the Church had been mowed when
I was there, but the overall burying ground needs a lot of work done on it. Graves with tombstones belong to Clouds, Joneses, Hootens, Moodys—all names familiar to area residents. And of course the small number of Kimberlins.
Here are a few inscriptions I copied from gravestones: Ollis A. Cloud—Born April 26, 1884; Died Oct. 10, 1918. Clella Ann Cloud, Died Nov. 12, 1910, Age 29 years, 1 month. Ambros C. Cloud—B. April 3, 1857, D. Apr. 14, 1945. Susan, His Wife—B. Feb. 18, 1855, D. Apr. 11, 1918. Verna L. Cloud—B. Mar. 4, 1910, D. June 7, 1910. Delpha E. Cloud—B. Oct. 23, 1908, D. Feb. 2, 1909.
Elizabeth Kimberlin married Thomas Evatt. Her tombstone reads:
Elizabeth, wife of Thomas Evatt
Born Aug. 11, 1842
Died Oct. 28, 1903.
Upon the death of her husband, Anna Kimberlin went to live with Ambros and Susan Cloud. Susan was Anna’s own daughter. She lived with them until she died. Her tombstone reads:
Our Mother Anna Kimberling
Born Mar.26, 1882—Died Oct. 10, 1898
Erected by Robert Morris and Susan P. Cloud.
By the side of Anna Kimberling lies her husband whose tombstone reads:
Davis Kimberlin
B. Apr. 10, 1822
D. Aug. 16, 1888
The man who lives across the road from the cemetery, Fred Hood, was attempting to answer my questions about this burial and that "How come," I wanted to know, "that Davis Kimberlin spelled his name without the "g", while on his wife’s tombstone it says ‘Kimberling’?"
"Take another look," Mr. Hood replied, "and you can see there’s no room on his rock for a ‘g’."
And sure enough there wasn’t!
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