Maclay's Mill was built along the area near the Conodoguinet Creek which was first settled in 1742[1] by Charles Maclay, Sr., who had arrived in America eight years prior. The mill was built around 1786[2] by Charles' son John Maclay. Although there is controversy as to the date, one family narrative includes a legend that the mill race leading to John Maclay's grist mill was dug by Hessian prisoners of war during the American Revolution.[3] The mill lasted seven generations until it was dismantled in 1918[4] after being sold to Clarence Stouffer. Over its lifetime the mill was the childhood home of two United States Senators, William Maclay (politician)[5] and Samuel Maclay,[6] this also being the birthplace of the latter of the two.
^Bowling and Veit, The Diary of William Maclay, 431
^John G. Orr, "Early Grist Mills of Lurgan Township," Kittochtinny Historical Society Papers 1 (1904):91
^Margaret Maclay Patterson and Jacob Crider, "History of Maclay's Mill," in The Shippensburg Historical Society: A Fifty Year Retrospective, 1945-1995 (Shippensburg, Pa.: Shippensburg Historical Society, 1995), 93
