Casper and Abraham Shafer Grist Mill Complex, Stillwater

Casper and Abraham Shafer Grist Mill Complex, Stillwater
Identifier
NJS-PLC-00232
Place Type
Industrial Site or Mill
Located In
Stillwater
Description
The Casper and Abraham Shafer Grist Mill Complex is located at 928 Main Street in Stillwater Township, Sussex County, New Jersey. As of 2009, the property is on the National Register of Historic Places. The site is named for the original owners who established the mill in the 18th century, although most of the surviving structures at the mill complex date from the 19th century. Related historic structures in Stillwater include Casper Shafer's 18th-century stone house on Main Street and another dwelling, located across the Paulins Kill on Cedar Ridge Road, that is known locally as Casper Shafer's slave quarters.

Note that the name of the mill's owners is variously spelled Shafer, Shaver, or Schaeffer in historical documents and local histories.

Casper Shafer, an early German settler of Stillwater, established a mill on his property along the Paulins Kill in the early 1740s. The original mill was located about 1500 feet northeast of the current mill building. Around 1764, Shafer built a new gristmill at the current location; he also added a linseed-oil mill and a sawmill around this time. The mill was the commercial center of Stillwater.

After Casper Shafer's death in 1784, his son Abraham Shafer took over the industrial complex and rebuilt and expanded it in the late 1790s, adding a tannery near the mill. Before his death in 1820, Abraham Shafer added a fulling mill, a distillery, and a weaving shop. Sussex County records, as well as the family history written by the Rev. Dr. Casper Schaeffer (1784-1857), indicate that as many as a dozen enslaved Black people labored at Abraham Shafer's mill and house in the early decades of the 19th century.

The 18th-century mill structure burned down in 1844 and was immediately reconstructed by Abraham Shafer's sons; that 1844 mill building has been preserved to the present day.
Locality
Stillwater
County (Modern)
Sussex County
State or Province
New Jersey
Country
United States of America
Latitude
41.03324
Longitude
-74.87467
References

Casper and Abraham Shafer Grist Mill Complex, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, 2009. NPGallery Digital Asset Management System, NRIS ID 09000653. https://npgallery.nps.gov/AssetDetail/NRIS/09000653.

Schaeffer, Casper, and William M. Johnson. Memoirs and Reminiscences Together with Sketches of the Early History of Sussex County, New Jersey, With Notes and Genealogical Records of the Schaeffer, Shaver or Shafer Family. Hackensack, NJ: Privately printed, 1907. https://archive.org/details/memoirsreminisce00scha.

"Township Overview." Historical Society of Stillwater Township. https://www.historicstillwater.org/township-overview/.

Virtual tour of the village of Stillwater, by Arnold B. Shafer. Casper Shafer's Family in America. https://www.historicstillwater.org/abshafer.com/stillwater.html.

Casper Shafer (1712-1784) historical marker, Historical Marker Database. https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=26448.
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casper_and_Abraham_Shafer_Grist_Mill_Complex
Keywords
National Register of Historic Places
Image Rights
Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons. Photograph of the Shafer Grist Mill (Stillwater, NJ) seen from the southeast, by Ammodramus, 2011.
Record Contributor
Jesse Bayker
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