JULY 16, 2009 ISSUE
48th Annual Moretz Reunion July 26
Efforts Underway to Restore Winebarger Mill
The Winebarger Mill in Watauga County’s Meat Camp community has been the subject of much artwork and media coverage over the years. Professional and aspiring artists have sketched and painted the mill, and it has been featured on WBTV’s “Carolina Camera,” as well as becoming the focus of a film by a group in Kentucky called Appalshop. Photo submitted
The 48th annual John Moretz Family Reunion will be held Sunday, July 26, at the Watauga High School grounds beginning at 10:00 a.m.
This year’s celebration will involve not only the standard food and fellowship, but also a historical presentation and discussion of the new effort to stabilize and restore the Winebarger Mill in Watauga County’s Meat Camp community. The mill is closely associated with the family’s history.
“I’ve been talking to my uncle for years about getting it restored,” said Ray Moretz, secretary/treasurer for the Moretz Family Reunion and co-chairman for the Winebarger Mill Preservation Society.
Of the more than 400 Moretz family descendants across the country on the mailing list, about 150 people attended last year’s family reunion, Moretz said.
“I’m hoping if people are interested in the mill we’ll have 200 to 300 [this year],” he added.
The Winebarger Mill has been the subject of much artwork and media coverage over the years.
“Lots of people have come out and sketched it and painted it,” Moretz said.
The mill was also featured on WBTV’s “Carolina Camera,” painted by artists Joe Seme and Richard Tumbleston and was the focus of a film by a group in Kentucky called Appalshop.
Will Winebarger represented the third generation and owned and operated the mill from the 1920s until his death in 1975. He added water-powered grain elevators and an addition onto the front of the mill in 1928 to house two modern steel roller mills and a steel water wheel. The mill saw its heydey under Will’s ownership. It was known as a buckwheat mill and shipped 100-pound bags of flour across the region. Photo submitted
The mill remains a symbol of a way of life, of the values and of the independent spirit passed from generation to generation, Moretz said.
“Since moving back to Meat Camp when I was in high school, I have been fascinated by the history of the mill, the family and the community,” Moretz said. “[I’ve] tried to document as much of the history as possible before it is lost.”
The Moretz family was part of the Pennsylvania Dutch migration into Piedmont North Carolina, first settling in Randolph and Catawba counties. John Moretz, a carpenter and millwright, organized a group of families—including the Winebargers, Davises and Woodrings—and moved to Watauga County around 1834.
Moretz bought an old gristmill from Samuel Cooper on lower Meat Camp Creek along the old Buffalo Trail, and rebuilt it with a larger mill complex and stone dam, with the help of the other families that included millwrights carpenters and stone masons. The mill was powered by both a water wheel and a turbine, which operated the gristmills, as well as a sawmill, a linseed oil mill and carding machines.
Jacob and Johnny Winebarger came to Watauga County with John Moretz, and, upon completion of the mills, Jacob Winebarger married Moretz’s daughter Sally in 1848. The couple moved farther up Meat Camp Creek, where Winebarger built an undershot gristmill for John Proffit before building the Winebarger Mill sometime before 1873. Winebarger was a millwright, farmer, carpenter and blacksmith who built his homestead and a two-story log home for his family of 13 children along Meat Camp Creek, not far from his mill. Winebarger and his wife, Sally Moretz Winebarger, helped organize Mount Zion Lutheran Church, where they were lifelong members. He continued to farm and work his mill until his death in 1883. Both were buried in the Winebarger Family Cemetery, not far from the mill.
The Winebarger Mill has been owned and operated continuously on the original site by four generations. Jacob Winebarger’s son Hosea inherited the mill, which burned in 1910. Along with the help of his son William (Will), he rebuilt it. Will later inherited the mill and added water-powered grain elevators and an addition onto the front of the mill in 1928 to house two modern steel roller mills and a steel water wheel.
Several years before his death in 1975, Will turned the mill over to his son Walter Winebarger, who kept the mill operational until his death in 2005.
The almost 100-year-old mill, with its structure dating back to 1910, is mostly still intact and operational; however, parts of the mill—including the roof, structural supports, siding, the flume and mill race—are in need of repairs.
Walter’s son, Allen Winebarger, and his family joined the community-based nonprofit Winebarger Mill Preservation Society in hopes that the mill can be stabilized and restored. This would allow Allen to be the fifth generation, and his son to be the sixth, to operate the mill.
A privately owned structure cannot be converted into a nonprofit organization, so the family will lease the mill to the nonprofit for it to be repaired, he said.
“My sincerest wish is to someday be driving home from Boone up Meat Camp Road past a restored Winebarger Mill and think to myself, it was a good thing that we did,” Moretz said.
For more information, call Moretz at 828-264-1989.
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