City Directories and History: This historic Reedy River Mill features carved wooden cogs and teeth that operate the water mill.
See Annals of Newberry County for additional data. “This church is located about two miles from Ekom Crossroads, formerly known as Duvall’s Cross Roads, named for William Duvall who owned a farm and lived there. A post office in that section on an old star postal route was referred to as Simpson’s Mills. Around 1886, Preston Milam moved to the cross-roads and established a general store, where he also kept the post office. When the Post Office Department in Washington requested a shorter name than Simpson’s Mills, Milam used the four initials of his wife’s full name, Elizabeth Kitura Owens Milam, to produce Ekom. Eventually, the post office, cross-roads, school, and community all assumed this name.”
On Rabon Creek, where Dirty Creek entered, there stood a grist mill, a saw mill, and a ginnery, now known as McDaniel’s Mills place. Miss Jennie V. Culbertson, Laurens County Auditor and great-granddaughter of the first Culbertson owner, gives us factual information on the history of the mills, obtained from family papers penned by the late W. P. Culbertson of Laurens, an interesting narrator of old times.
The mill property was owned first by a Mr. Simpson, who served as the first postmaster for that area. Initials are unknown, but Simpson’s Mills Post Office is listed in the ‘Table of Post offices in the United States on the first day of January, 1851,” secured from Library of Congress. The next owner of the property was John R. Culbertson, who was the grandson of Robert Culbertson, a Revolutionary War soldier. On May 5, 1856, the Washington, D. C. Laurensville Herald The property was next acquired by Joel McDaniel, whose wife was a granddaughter of the original Culbertson owner, John R. carried this report of Commissioners of Roads and Bridges: “To amount paid John Culbertson for repairing bridge at his mill, $30.00.”
John died in 1862, and his eldest son, Young Jehu Culbertson (Young is a family name and still is used) returned from the War Between the States to assume the management which he continued until 1870 when he moved over to Fish Dam on Reedy River and started his own mills—grist, saw, and ginnery. This operation was known as Culbertson and Boland Mills. At the time John R. Culbertson and sons ran the business, there was a splendid shoal and waterfall which furnished the power to turn the machinery.
As late as 1936 rock pillars and sills marked the big mill house and foundations of the smaller structures, the layout giving evidences of a thriving business. Still a favorite spot in 1936 was the “little rock” at the head of the old mill pond, from which vantage point boys leaped into the deep pond waters. It is said that the late Dr. Willie T. Jones of Ware Shoals saved a Cross Hill man from drowning at the pond site. At the time both young men were students at the then noted Williamsville School.
The pond was often frozen over in winter, allowing safe walking across. W. P. Culbertson recalled seeing the old mill yard covered with logs awaiting to be sawed, the spacious mill house floor piled with bags of grain awaiting an empty hopper, heaps of yellow com and huge pumpkins in piles about the grounds—an overall picture of prosperity. Attesting to the adequate supply of water power in that section of the County, Mr. Culbertson stated one could stand in the doorway of old Centerville School house and hear the hum and whip of four grist mills, three saw mills, and four ginneries. There were Washington Mill and gin on the west side of Reedy River and Watkins Grist and Saw Mill and gin on the east side, both one mile above the present site of Culbertson’s Bridge. Two miles farther up the river stood Culbertson and Boland’s Grist and Saw Mills at Fish Dam (previously mentioned). On Rabun were the Simpson-CuIbertson-McDaniel Mills— all within a distance of three square miles.
Information from: Names in South Carolina by C.H. Neuffer, Published by the S.C. Dept. of English, USC
Post Offices via Elmer Parker’s S.C. Post Office History Book, 1989 states: the location of Simpson’s Mill Post Office ran from 1839 / 1855 by Postmaster, Mr. John W. Simpson and from 1855 / the Civil War by Robert Culbertson – Postmaster.
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