Clover Hill Mill

   Blount County, Tennnessee

 by Sandra Nipper Ratledge

~ photographed by Stephen Ratledge, October 10, 2004 ~

Off the beaten track and then onto Blount County backroads brings one to a spot where time seems to stand still. Here visitors may step into yesteryear, decades and decades ago, back almost to the beginning of the twentieth century. Like a sentinel, far from well-worn paths of busy workday commuters to Maryville, and, far indeed, from the hustle and bustle of frenzied vacationers hurrying to popular tourist attractions in the Great Smoky Mountains, here stands the old Clover Hill Mill pictured above. In this pastoral setting, only utility poles and asphalt pavement appear anachronistic. This, the last of the county's full-service gristmills, is located west of Highway 411 where Clover Hill Road intersects with Clover Hill Mill Road.

Roundabout thrived a little village, now almost two centuries old, and named "Clover Hill" for the lush clover farm flourishing there in the early nineteenth century. Blount County pioneer Abijah Conger planted vast fields of green clover to sustain livestock on his farm. On these verdant hills, many early Blount County families settled. Theirs were common surnames thereabouts. They were farmers and farm laborers such as Richard Brackett, Barney Cochran, Cyrus Cochran, Ham Craig, Elijah Cunningham, Ephraim Dunlap, John Henry, James Hunt, Joe Kizer, James Logan, Houston Martin, Elijah McKeehan, John Ratledge, Drewry Rose, Jackson Stallions, Edmond Tucker, and all the various Tucks.

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