Few vestiges remain, but in the 1880s Milltown bustled. Cooper Mill shared "Main Street" with a blacksmith shop, a general store, a tavern, Abram Cooper's sawmill and the Mountain Spring Distillery, a cider mill that made apple brandy and apple jack. One mile north, the Chester Furnace employed 100 men who produced nearly 300 tons of iron weekly. Down river, Nichols' Woolen Mill turned out blankets and Taylor's iron roaster burned unwanted sulphur from ore mined nearby. Trains loaded with iron ore rumbled through Milltown daily.Schoolteacher Edith Secor and shopkeeper John P. Rockafeller called Milltown home. They shared their community with farmers, machinists, engineers, and teamsters, people from all walks of life. Miners, making 50? a day, lived in modest houses huddled together in "patches" on the edge of town. Mill and mine owners like General Nathan A. Cooper built relative mansions in nearby Chester.
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