West Point Mill Company - South Carolina 1880

Beautiful RARE certificate from the West Point Mill Company issued in 1880. This historic document was printed by Joseph Walker Printing Company and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of the company's original mill. This item has the signatures of the Company's President and Secretary and is over 127 years old. Shows signed of wear on folds.


Certificate Vignette

In 1893. the West Point Mill Co., of Charleston, South Carolina, operated the largest rice mill in the United States. The plant covered about sixteen acres of land, and the annual output was about three hundred thousand barrels of rice and rice flour. The rice has to be pounded to break off the paddy, and brushed by rotary brushes and other machines to clean off the dust and separate the grains.

The West Point Rice Mill was the largest antebellum rice mill in South Carolina. The West Point Rice Mill was built on the Ashley River (at the west end of Calhoune Street) in Charleston in 1839 by Jonathan Lucas, III (d. 1853). The main factory was housed in a four-story brick building. The mill complex had workers' quarters, a cooperage, wharves, a rough rice storehouse, a carpenter's shop, a small flour mill, and a blacksmith shop.

History from GEOGRAPHICAL SPICE. A MANUAL FOR THE USE OF TEACHERS - 1893.