DIRECTIONS: From Main St Pickens take Ann St (US 178 north, also known as Rosman or Mountain Highway); Go down the hill, across the bridge, pass the Town and Country Plaza, up-over-down the next hill (Fox Squirrel Ridge) to the the grocery store at Midway Road. Turn left just past the store on to Hagood Mill Road. The mill is on the right.

     Benjamn Hagood was from Edgefield County, South Carolina and wealthy enough to have a Summer home in the mountain area of the state. In 1828 he purchased a tract of land on the north fork of Twelve Mile River, about 3 miles north from present day Pickens, good bottom land for farming with several streams feeding into the same river. The man he bought the land from was Solomon Hays, my maternal fourth great-grandfather, every time I drive through that area I think of being on land that was once owned by an ancestor.

     Anyway, the location was way out in the country back then, the old Pendleton District had just been divided into Anderson County and Pickens District with the new district seat at Old Pickens on Keowee River some 15 miles to the west. Hagood had his summer home there and after the Pickens District was divided into Oconee and Pickens Countys in 1868 he moved to the new Pickens Courthouse town, present day Pickens. He moved the house too, board and brick, which still stands just off Main St on North Lewis St, the Hagood - Mauldin Homestead.

     Grinding mills were scattered about the country so the farmers didnt have to haul their grain too far to be ground and Benjamn Hagood built one later about 1833 or so. Some mills were called corn mills or grist mills not that there's much difference. Corn get ground up, the finer stuff is cornmill from which cornbread is made, that's Johnny bread or Rebel bread for you Yankees. Then there's the not so fine which ends up being cooked into the Southern grits, that would be Cream of Corn for you Yankees who eat Cream of Wheat just a different grain is all. Then the courser stuff is grist which gets fed to the chickens which get Southern fried to go with the grits.

     Hagood Mill is an overshoot type, that's when the water is run over the top of the wheel and gravity does the work. The other type of mill was an undershoot, that's where the river flow was fast enough to directed against the bottom of the wheel. The stream or river is dammed upstream and a trough is run along the hillside down to the mill where it is guided over the wheel. A gate is used to turn the water onto the wheel or not for turning the machinery on and off. Inside the mill there are more machanisms than just the grinding wheels. Gears and belts drive the other things too: corn shucker, kernaler, sifter and such. It was really automated for the times.

     There are other mills in Pickens County, Meece's Mill, Golden Creek Mill (Stuart's) come to mind, there's a list of those mills along with a brief history and status at Hagood Mill. Pickens County Museum also has that write up. Currently, Spring thru Fall 1998, Hagood Mill is open for visitors on the third Saturday of every month.