Whitewater Gorge

On this site in 1854 Timothy Thistlethwaite and his brother-in-law Joseph Ratliff dammed the water of the river with the use of farm teams, placing large boulders at the bottom of an earth and stone fill in the river channel; this changing the course of the river to flow into a new channel over a rocky ledge forming Thistlethwaite Falls. It has withstood a century of floods of the season.
Timothy Thistlethwaite's wife's grandfather, Cornelius Ratliff, Sr., came to this site in 1810 when impressed with the heavy growth of timber and the mass of building stone lying loosely in the bed of the river.
Mr. Thistlethwaite's saw mill at this site was placed at the edge of the falls over a shoulder of rock and near the bull wheel. A lock was installed above the falls to regulate the volume of water used in turning the water wheel. The 47′ fall from the falls allowed Timothy's development of several mills (a grist mill, a flour mill, paper mill, and a lumber sawing mill) in the Happy Hollow district of early Richmond.
After 80 years, nothing remained as a reminder of these mills except the pit in the falls which ran the bull wheels of the up and down saw and a portion of the continuation of a raceway from the paper mill site downstream.

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