Question: There are more than 20 cemeteries within the Greater Baldwinsville area. Do you know in which one this large granite monument sits and why it is in this particular cemetery?
Its inscription reads:
“In Memory of Daniel Warner Marvin the Second, The Son of Harry Norton Marvin and Oramella Tackabury Marvin .Born Feb. 12, 1894, Lost at Sea, Apr. 15, 1912, One of the Heroes of the Titanic.”
Last week’s answer: The imposing structure featured last week was a flour mill located on the peninsula today known as Paper Mill Island. Originally Parker Mill, its name changed with successive owners, the last being the Hotalings. Throughout its life it was also called the Stone Mill.
In 1833 young Sanford C. Parker, attorney, merchant, mill owner and New York State Assemblyman, left Marcellus and came to Baldwinsville and soon became a leader in both business and civic affairs.
Two years later Parker purchased Rueben Smith’s sawmill on the peninsula. Purchase price was $6,000. The site was bordered on the north by the Seneca River, on the east by the forerunner of Mercer Mill, on the south by a small feeder canal that came to a dead end at Syracuse Street and on the west by assorted small industries.
The sawmill and its buildings were torn down and construction of what Parker hoped would be a lasting memorial to his name began. The mill would be 100 feet by 60 feet, four stories high plus a basement with a grain elevator on the south side. It was designed to operate with 10 run of stone. The structure would be built of native Niagara limestone hauled by oxen from the Bigelow quarry two miles north of the village, today’s Church Road and Route 48 intersection. Lumber for the mill was purchased at $1.50 per 1,000 feet from Squire Munro and came from Elbridge.
Parker hired Col. Gabriel Tappan for the task of general contractor. Stephen Fancher was given the masonry contract, and millwright Solomon Scisco engineered installation of the equipment.
Parker Mill was fully operational in the fall of 1838. It produced flour and feed and was using 11 run of stone. The Gazette described the project as “exceedingly expensive and clearly admired by all.”
Parker’s fortunes and influence grew. He was instrumental in establishing the Masonic order in the village, served on the board of education and served terms as supervisor of the town of Van Buren and president of the village of Baldwinsville.
During the 1850s, Parker suffered a series of financial reversals. In 1854 he sold the mill to Johnson, Cook & Co. Seven years later Parker saw what he had hoped would be his memorial suffer a devastating fire. Parker passed away two months later.
Despite damages of $40,000 to the facility and $25,000 to its contents, owners Cook and Wetherby began rebuilding immediately.
In 1870 brothers Garrett and Albert Hotaling purchased the mill. The Hotalings introduced efficiencies and economies. They installed the Hungarian Roller Process, using 13 sets of rollers and retaining one run of stone. Powered by six water wheels they produced 200 barrels of floor per day. Five specialty brands were developed: Hotaling’s Best, Golden Rule, Eagle Mills, Stone Mills and Ideal.
By 1885 the mill was running at full capacity. Eight men worked in the mill with Homer Gove head miller and David Delaney running the cooper shop. In the late 1880s a railroad spur brought train transportation to the mill’s doorway. In 1893 local grocers advertised “Stone Mills” brand of flour for $1 per 49-pound sack.
The village’s prime location for waterpower, the peninsula was crowded with manufacturers when flames filled the night sky on Dec. 19, 1898. Fire had broken out in the paper mill and, aided by strong westerly winds, quickly spread to the adjacent rawhide process plant and then to the stone mill catching the building’s north side, its most vulnerable point. The mill had onlythree3 stone sides; the north wall was made of wood and sat at the very edge of the river.
Access was severely limited. Firefighters had only a 50-foot strip of land between the stone mill and Clark & Mercer Mill. If the blaze spread further, all of the buildings at the south end of the river bridge would be in peril.
In the words of the Gazette: “the location of the buildings was such as to add serious difficulties to the labors of the fire laddies. … in the midst of blinding smoke they stood in the space between the stone mill and that of Clark & Mercer, fighting with an energy born of desperation. … By an almost superhuman effort the fire was stopped here. … it was a hard fight and one lasting for hours….”
Clark & Mercer was saved; the paper mill was rebuilt, and the expanding rawhide process works moved to Syracuse to a larger site. The once grand Stone Mill perished, never to rise again.
Contact Editor Sarah Hall at [email protected] or leave a message at 434-8889 ext. 310 with your guess by 5 p.m. Friday (please leave the information in the message; we are not generally able to return calls regarding History Mystery responses). If you are the first person to correctly identify an element in the photo, your name and guess will appear in next week’s Messenger, along with another History Mystery feature. History Mystery is a joint project of the Museum at the Shacksboro Schoolhouse and the Baldwinsville Public Library.
