Laurel Mill
Laurel Mill in the early 1920s
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| Owner | Nicholas Snowden |
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| Coordinates | 39°06′36″N 76°51′28″W / 39.11°N 76.8577°WCoordinates: 39°06′36″N 76°51′28″W / 39.11°N 76.8577°W |
| Construction | |
| Demolished | 1929 |
The Laurel Mill was a multi-use mill located along the Patuxent River in Laurel, Maryland. Built by Nicholas Snowden on the site of an earlier grist mill, Laurel Mill operated intermittently between 1811 and 1929, manufacturing flour, cloth, cotton duck and other cotton products, and window shades. Between 1835 and 1851 the mill was operated by Horace Capron, who had married into the Snowden family, and the Patuxent Manufacturing Company, who also established the town of Laurel Factory, which was incorporated as Laurel in 1870.
Laurel Mill closed by 1929 and was razed in the 1940s, and the grounds of the mill are now the City of Laurel Municipal Pool. The Laurel Museum currently sits opposite the Laurel Mill site, in a home constructed by the mill company.
The first building on the site of the Laurel Mill was a stone grist mill constructed in 1811 by Nicholas Snowden, a member of a prominent Maryland family. Snowden's parents "Major" Thomas Snowden and Ann Ridgely constructed a five-part, Georgian-style home, Montpelier Mansion, near the Patuxent River between 1781 and 1785. Nicholas Snowden was born at Montpelier Mansion in 1786, and owned the mansion from 1803 until his death in 1831. In addition to operating his family's 9,000 acre plantation and the Patuxent Ironworks, Snowden opened the grist mill in 1811; by 1820 the mill employed two workers and produced 10-15,000 bushels of flour.
In 1834 Horace Capron, a businessman who had operated several mills, including Savage Mill in Savage, Maryland, married Nicholas Snowden's daughter Louisa Snowden. A year later, in 1835, he formed the Patuxent Manufacturing Company and expanded on the Laurel Mill building. Aided by the recent construction of the B&O Railroad, manufacturing boomed at Laurel Mill in the 1840s. By 1845 Capron operated both the Laurel Mill, then called Laurel Factory, and newly built Avondale Mill, employing between 700-800 women and men between the two buildings.
Business slowed soon after, and according to the 1850 census Patuxent Manufacturing Company only had 500 employees. That same year the company built a larger dam on the Patuxent River to allow it to shift from water wheel to water turbine power, and also added small steam engines.
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