Christmas poem written at Ellicott's Mills in 1856 by M. C. P.

Someone from Ellicott's Mills - M. C. P.  (Pue?) wrote a poem about Christmas for the magazine The Little Pilgrim (Phila: April, 1856)

Lea mills on the Brandywine

Joseph Tatnall and his son-in-law Thomas Lea, Sr. dug a mill race on the rocky north shore of the Brandywine, and by 1764 there were four mills on the shore. An 1873 article (image left) stated that the Lea mills were still in operation by the Lea family.  Elizabeth Ellicott of Ellicott mills married Thomas Lea, Jr. in 1812.

Brandywine Mills in the Revolutionary War

During the Revolutionary War the Tatnall and Lea flour mills furnished flour to the American army. Washington and Lafayette visited Joseph Tatnall.  Before the battle of the Brandywine, Washington ordered the top grinding stones of the mills to be removed and hidden from the British troops.

Lea's Brandywine flour mills near Wilmington Del., 1800

The famed Tatnall and Lea flour mills in Delaware were visited by many foreigners including the Duc de La Rochefoucauld [1747-1827], who left France during the beginning of the French Revolution. He described Thomas Lea - whose son married Elizabeth Ellicott (1st Md. cookbook) daughter of George Ellicott - as "a handsome, cheerful, active, man...a candid and obliging man" and their private "flour manufactory" bought "corn" (grain) and shipped the flour to Philadelphia then exported.