Brandywine Village

Brandywine Village was an early center of U.S. industrialization located on the Brandywine River in what is now Wilmington, Delaware.

The Brandywine crosses the Fall Line just north of Wilmington, and descends from about 160 feet (49 m) above sea level in Chadds Ford to just a few feet above sea level in Wilmington. The river's descent allowed manufacturers — notably, of flour and gunpowder — to use high-powered machinery in the days before the steam engine, while its navigable channel to the Delaware River and Delaware Bay allowed them to load oceangoing ships.

By 1687, a Swedish colonist, Tyman Stidham opened the first mill on the Brandywine, near Wilmington. About 1735, Brandywine Village was founded across the creek from Wilmington. Quakers Elizabeth Levis Shipley, her husband William Shipley, and Thomas Canby were important in establishing the village and its supporting flour mills. By 1743, Thomas's son Oliver owned 3 mill sites. A dam and a millrace south of the creek had been built.

Prominent Quaker millers, including the Canbys, Leas, and Tatnalls, built their stone homes along Market Street, and built the Brandywine Academy building in 1798. A cupola was added to the academy in 1820, and it rang as the Marquis de Lafayette visited on October 6, 1824. By 1806 there were "about fifty or sixty snug brick, stone, and frame houses" in the village and about 12 mills.

In 1760 a bridge was built at the current site of the Market Street Bridge, and the north race and two more flour mills were built by Joseph Tatnall.

Oliver Evans in the 1780s helped local mills increase their efficiency, ushering in the industrial revolution. His first design for a fully integrated automatic flour mill was first used for a mill on nearby Red Clay Creek in 1783 and gradually gained acceptance from Brandywine millers. The grain was unloaded on the ground floor and raised to the top floor by waterpower. Gravity moved the grain through the stages of cleaning, drying, grinding, spreading, and cooling, in a continuous manufacturing process.

...
Wikipedia