A Gloucester landmark is in the early stages of demolition. The old Burke’s Mill house, located on Route 602 just past James Store, will be torn down in the coming weeks.

Marcy Germanotta, spokesperson for the Girl Scouts of the Colonial Coast, the organization that owns the property, said the deteriorating structure has gotten to a point that even the Virginia Department of Historic Resources has deemed it unfit for repair.

The property was donated to the Girl Scouts in 1972 by the late Fred Mason, Germanotta said. It also includes a larger tract of land on the opposite side of Route 602, which is where a majority of the Girl Scout camp activities take place.

The mill house has remained non-operational since the scouts took it over, she said, but for a time, the organization did have caretakers for the camp property staying in the historic structure.

Don and Lavonne Joyce were those caretakers and lived in the old mill house for three decades, spanning from the early 1980s up until 2010. “The building needed lots of attention most of the time,” Mr. Joyce said.

He said the couple looked at their time of being caretakers of the property as a “public service opportunity” and said they both enjoyed working with the scouts.

“All I can say is time changes,” Mr. Joyce added. “I wish Gloucester was like it was 30 years ago, but it’s not. Times change, and I understand the Girl Scouts made their decision for (a reason).”

Germanotta said that discussions have been in place for years among the scouts’ board of directors about what to do with the old mill house. “Due to damages caused by a couple of really bad storms and decay over time, the board of directors decided to raze the mill house structure and build another facility to serve the girls who utilize the camp at this time,” she said.

At this point, Germanotta said there are no concrete plans for what will be built in place of the old mill, but said it will be “more than likely a cabin or some form of overnight facility for the girls.”

She said the organization is allowing for the sale of certain things that may be of historical significance. Contractors were on site Monday morning removing items such as the antique windows that were part of the structure.

“We’re also keeping some items and plan to make an archive display to, I assume, be placed in the new facility,” Germanotta added.

Since 2007, a number of groups have visited the old mill house to conduct structural and environmental reviews on the property. She said one of the latest reviews, given by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, stated that the property was not unique enough or a good example of a structure eligible for preservation.

A preliminary estimate that the Girl Scouts received to conduct just basic work on the property was upwards of $250,000, the Girl Scouts spokesperson said. “As a nonprofit organization, we just didn’t have the funds or the time to seek out preserving it,” she added.

She said some of the structural issues with the old mill house include large cracks in the concrete foundation and the deterioration of the retaining wall that protects the structure from the adjacent stream. “It’s really in the process of collapsing,” Germanotta said of the whole building.

The mill’s demolition has been a long time coming. Gloucester resident George Zahn, who was featured in a 1989 Gazette-Journal article which discussed potential improvements to the mill house at that time, said, “I’m sorry to see it go, but I can understand they just don’t have the money to (keep it up).”

The mill’s history

After being acquired by the Girl Scouts, there was a movement around 1989 to restore the old mill, and even conduct grindings at certain times of the year to coordinate with local festivals, according to Gazette-Journal files.

There is little history dating up to the time Mason purchased the mill; however, the millrace included a date of 1918 behind the main building. Meanwhile, small bricks found below the concrete work in the basement led some to believe the present building was built on an older mill site.

The two-story mill house is built on top of a basement, which housed the mill works; grinding stones took up the first floor and the second floor served as a residence for a couple who took care of the property for a number of years.

According to the files, the rear of the building also contained a flour mill at one time, where white flour was ground from grain.

One historian cited in the 1989 article said she believed that Burke’s Pond was dammed up in colonial times, while Lorna Wass, longtime volunteer and trustee for the Girl Scout council, said she believed the site to have been part of a 1,000-acre tract owned by botanist and longtime Gloucester Court Clerk John Clayton.

Wass spoke highly of the property’s late owner, saying Mr. Mason “would be so pleased” at how well the grounds of his beloved property have been kept. She said when he was living, Mason attended every cookout the Girl Scouts had and supported them in any way that he could.

“It’s a sacred place,” Wass added, “and he was a very, very wonderful man.”

Also in the files, the late Charles Kerns Sr. said his great-grandfather built or rebuilt seven mills in the county, including Kerns Mill at Adner, a water-driven saw mill, Stubbs Mill near Petsworth, Melicoote Mill near Ark, Haynes or Cloptons Mill at White Marsh, Burke’s Mill and Cow Creek Mill, with only the latter two mill houses still standing.

A mill by any other name …

According to Gloucester historian Bill Lawrence, who has done research on the old mills in the area, Burke’s Mill has had a number of different names over the years, depending on the owner at the time.
Other names have included Burk’s Mill, Henshaw, Davis, Dunn, Hudgins and Whitings. He said it appears as Davis Mill pond on the 1912 Folkes map.