Swartwout Mill

The original mill was built by Isaiah Cole in 1799 and operated for almost half a century until a cloudburtst and flash flood in 1848 destroyed it. The mill which became known as the Swartwout Mill was constructed about 1849 under the ownership of Isaiah Cole about fifty yards below the original. A man by the name of Robbins is credited with having built it. The mill and about 150 acres of land was purchased by Robert Swartout in 1858. His brother, John, came from Albany, Kew York, in 1859 and managed the property.

At one time, Bent Cole operated the mill. "Bent" Cole refers to Thomas Benton Cole, who at one time lived in the stone house next to the present Mill Race Golf Course.

Swartout sold the mill to Joseph Follmer and, after several sales, it became the property of the Pennsylvania Power and Light Company, who sold the building to Terrence Smith, retaining the water power. Smith removed the building in 1914, one hundred and fifteen years after the date of the first building.

The ground on which these mills stood was a grant from Penn to Jonathen Colley, who planted an apple orchard in 1797.

Go here to read the history of the Swartwout family in the Benton area.

Go here to return to the main page of the mills of the upper Fishing Creek valley.

Go here if you would like more information about the descendants of the Swartwout Family that landed in Kingston, Ulster, New York, in the year 1652. The family now has members in every state of the Union as well as in Canada and in the Netherlands. Sadly the family in Netherlands has no male heirs to carry the name on, so it rests on the shoulders of those in the United States to carry the name forward.

"This year is the 351th Anniversary of the landing of the Swartwout family in North America. The name has many variations such as Swarthout, Swartout, Swartwood, Swathwood, Swarthwood etc. We need help to gather lines, pictures, articles, wills, what ever is stashed in your attic. We would really appreciate it if you shared with us what you had, there a literally thousands of us here looking for our roots, looking for connections. For our 350th Anniversary we need to updated our list of folks out there that are descendants somewhere along the line of any of those variations. We also have a family newsletter that costs only $5.00 per year, a real bargain. Just send it w/your mailing address. Every day I get e-mail asking me for help. Up here in Canada, there were two brothers that had huge families, all the remains of their descendants are the female sides. All the male went back to the States. I'm am the maintainer of "The Updated Swartwout Chronicles" People submit their lines-ged-coms etc. and I just drop them into the data base. It is everyone's database. Each person is responsible for their own submissions. It is not copyrighted."
--Kathy kathyh-at (@)sympatico.ca ld-at (@) hotmail.ca