Clare Matheny, a graduate student and a resident of the Taylorstown area, has created a video about the Taylorstown Mill and the efforts over time to preserve it, which she has agreed to share with us. Thank you, Clare. Its contents are:
Quakers Move to the German Settlement
Building the Mill: Success and Failures
“Are you a Union Man?” The Civil War in Taylorstown
A Mill and a Post Office
New Owner, New Bridge
The Mill Remains, the Business Changes
“Don’t Dam Loudoun”
A Mill Redesigned
The Current Owners: Current State of the Mill and Challenges to its Historic Preservation
We asked Clare to tell us about herself and how she came to make this video. This is what she told us:
“My name is Clare Matheny. I moved into the Taylorstown-area with my family in 1994. I grew up exploring the woods on Furnace Mountain along the Catoctin Creek. Though I garnered an interest in history and participated in the History Club at Loudoun Valley High School, I took for granted the amount of history that surrounded me growing up. It just seemed normal. I earned my bachelor’s degree in History from Christopher Newport University in 2010. I decided to go on an adventure after college and taught English in South Korea for 2 years. I enjoyed visiting museums and learning about history while exploring.
“After a variety of jobs, including my current federal employment, I decided to go back to school pursuing a master’s degree in Public History online at American Military University. The focus of the public history program is often more local history and learning different methods of presenting history to the general public. My dive into local history began with a project that became a virtual tour of the Stoutsenberger Farmstead (located just outside of Taylorstown in EcoVillage).
“This past semester, I took a course called “History, Theories, and Contemporary Issues in Historic Preservation” which led me to find a new topic for a final project. I reached out to the current residents of the Taylorstown Mill. I was thrilled when they were willing to let me visit and research the history of the mill for my project. Built in late eighteenth century and continuously occupied either as a mill or residence made this building a unique topic to study. The focus of the project was the Taylorstown Mill’s history, the history of threats to its continued existence, and the history of preservation efforts. I have enjoyed learning about my neighborhood and I keep finding new topics of interest that I hope to continue exploring.”
To watch the video, click Taylorstown Mill.