McCoy Mill

A mill has operated near the confluence of Thorn Creek with the South Branch of the Potomac River since 1766. In 1845 William McCoy contracted with millwright James William Byrd to replace the eighteenth-century mill and to increase grinding capacity. Byrd performed his task so well that the two-and-one-half-story rectangular frame mill on a tall stone base operated well into the twentieth century. A later generation of McCoys added a two-story frame house to the north end at the beginning of the twentieth century, and little seems to have happened since. The informally arranged complex, with several porches and an occasional millstone propped up in the yard, all surrounded by woods and rocks, is the county's best-known architectural landmark.