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George Washington's Grist Mill, Perryopolis, Pa., early 1900s.
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Early-20th-century hand-colored photo of the Grist Mill

Credit: Copyright 2005, David E. Illig. Used by permission. www.perryopolis.com

By the end of the American Revolution, George Washington owned nearly 60,000 acres in western Pennsylvania and what would become West Virginia. "If I was a young man, just preparing to begin the world," he wrote one friend, "I know of no country where I would rather find my habitation than in some part of that region." Washington had this grist mill constructed near Perryopolis between 1774 and 1776. In 1779 he leased it with 150 acres to Colonel Israel Shreve, a veteran of the Revolutionary War. Today the reconstructed mill is the centerpiece of a seven acre park that showcases early American industries.

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