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1841 – 1 May 1873
Founded: William Robinson commenced work in 1841 on a factory for the manufacture of doors, window sash and other wood products, completing the building in 1842. It stood west of Clinton Street a short distance south of the present National Guard Armory — Lot 6, Eliza Hanna's Subdivision, on the north side of Duck Street, in Bates's account — on land that by 1942 was city-owned and used as a municipal parking lot. Its power came from the Wabash and Erie Canal through a mill race it shared with the City Mills, discharging into the St. Marys River through a stone flume.
Founder: William Robinson, who bought the mill's machinery in Cleveland, Ohio.
What it did: A water-powered woodworking factory — doors, window sash and other millwork — in a two-and-one-half-story frame building set astride the mill race, its machinery driven by reaction wheels.
Course: Robinson died a little more than a year after the mill began operating. His interests were acquired by Hill and Williams, who sold the business to James Howe (hence Howe's Mill). In the spring of 1852 Allen Hamilton and Jesse L. Williams purchased the plant and leased it to Reuben Fronefield; a year later Robert T. Todd became Fronefield's partner, and Fronefield & Todd operated the business until 1 May 1873.
Fate: The machinery was then moved out and the building vacated, ending thirty-one years of operation. In the spring of 1940, workmen excavating for the Clinton Street interceptor sewer broke into the mill's old stone flume and river water flooded the excavation until the rollers at the municipal dam were raised to lower the river.
Sources:
- Roy M. Bates, The Water-Powered Mills of Allen County, Indiana (1942), No. XXXIV — site, course, ownership chain, the 1940 flume.