My visit to the Garrett Snuff Mill

A couple of weeks ago I took a little bicycle excursion out to the village of Yorklyn to take a look at the ruins of the old Garrett Snuff Mill. This is the spot that Levi owned and invented his famous snuff. As many of you know he passed that on to his son William E. The original buildings are all gone but the oldest structures date to the early 1800s. The mill later passed to the Helme company and the Garrett snuffs moved away. Helme stopped making their own snuff here in the 1950s. Most of the buildings are still in use, but mainly as storage for a construction company. A few seem to have refurbished interiors for the construction company’s office space. They are almost all in deplorable condition as you can see. I didn’t take a lot of photos, but this will give you an idea what it looks like.

Thank you Xander for taking us back in history. It’s a pity that people don’t care more about things like this. In our country it’s the same. Progress is all which counts and many old buildings just get slaughtered because of this. A while ago I visited the little village where I grew up and I felt like crying when I saw how it was butchered in the name of progress.

Then I walked across the nearest bridge to pay tribute to the creek that spawned this divine pleasure. Of course the original mill was water powered and had a mill race that cut through the property to the water wheel. The wheel is gone and the race filled in. So I gave a small tribute to the creek near the dam in the background which I assume was part of the old mill race. “Unto you, oh great spirit of the Red Clay Creek: Accept this offering of the labor of Levi Garrett and your humble servant, Xander!”

And this is just another cool bridge down the stream from the mill. There are several covered bridges in this area.

Xander, many thanks for posting the photo’s

you’re welcome. Are they taking too long to load? I could have made them smaller.

They do take a bit, but if you make the files smaller you will loose that good quality. I would leave them unless Alex complains about band-width, lol!

I have a nice history of Conwood/American Snuff Co/Garrett on my blog here:

Thanks for the pics Xander

They only had a shopfront in Philly. I don’t know what’s there now. Probably cleared to make the road wider. The Library of Congress online has a bunch of info on this. Do a google search for “Delaware Snuff Mill” I think you will find it if you skip all the hits for things on Snuff Mill Road. Lots of good older photos, maps and documentation. The mill is on the National Register of Historic Places, but that’s probably not worth the paper its printed on.

I’ve noticed the different spelling of Levi on the plague where it says Levy. Anyone knows why it was changed?

I don’t think the bridge has anything to do with Levi Garrett. I think Xander was just showing the plaque for the Red Clay Creek, where the old snuff mill was located.

Right, its just a nearby bridge. The similarities between Levy and Levi are pure coincidence.

I thank you, my good friends

Thanks xander your pictures turned out great!

Wow! Old Snuff mills make great viewing, whether they’re still operating like Wilson’s and SG’s or this and the one in Brooklyn.

Thanks for bringing those up! I hadn’t seen them before- @Xander BTW was there a distinct tobacco odor still in those buildings?Probably not after all those years-just curious.

Has any of our snuff aficionados out there been to a working snuff mill in the US. Since Swisher, Conwood and UST are still making snuff, I would think that someone would have gone to check 'em out.

I didn’t want to break into any of the buildings. It was a Sunday and no one was there. The place is pretty dilapidated and most of the buildings were filled with rubbish, so I couldn’t smell anything good.

Really great photos. Looks like it was an entertaining bike ride, on a nice day at that. I like the second photo especially, really neat old landmark style building, kinda reminds me of taking field trips in school to historical places. It’s too bad that an old mill isn’t turned into a snuff museum, that’d be very cool.