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or three horses when they came, one to ride and one or two to carry the commeal back. Along with all the moonshine activity, a Mr. Epp Weakley ran a bonded distillery in back of Nethers. His handsome profits enabled him to purchase the first car in town.
Robinson has traced the origin of the mill to 1794, when it was built by a Yowell, after surveys by Benjamin Lillard (Robinson calls him Rappahannock’s first developer) convinced Yowell that Nethers was the right spot for a mill.
John H. Huffman owned it in turn, and Arnold Nethers, Nelson’s great-grandfather, worked for him. In 1858 Huffman deeded the mill and the house and eighty acres, which also included a sawmill, to his employee. Eventually the grandson that folks called “Tip” operated the meal until its closing in 1945.
By all accounts the life of a miller suited William “Tip” Nethers just as it had his grandfather. A look at the interior of Nethers Mill shows that it was not an easy occupation, with steep ladders and stairs to be climbed with huge sacks of meal in addition to the physical work of grinding. And there was always the danger of flooding - marks on the mill’s side near the Hughes show the high water line for floods of the late 1800’s, 1942 and 1979. If the mill race overflowed in cold weather, the dirt road became a sheet of frozen mud and ice. But on sunny days a log Nethers had set up near the chicken coop to the right of the mill porch was full of men sit
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