Page 12 - Three Score Years & Ten
P. 12
“THREE SCORE YEARS AND TEN” MISSIONARY WORK IN CHINA
Amy Moore
Brough, like many other towns and villages, not only in this but in every other country, owes its
existence to a good supply of water. It is at Brough where Bradwell and Hope Brooks meet, unite and
give up their original names to be afterwards called the River Noe. Just at the place where these two
brooks meet, stands the Corn Mill before spoken of.
Brough Corn Mill, though it cannot boast architectural beauty, is to many esteemed sacred; much
more so than Hope Church was fifty years back, from its dispensation of oatmeal amongst the lead
miners of
Bradwell and villages adjoining. Brough Corn Mill was then the one thing needful. At that time the
lead miners, their families and all domestic animals, were fed on oatmeal ground at Brough Corn Mill.
A sack of flour was viewed with as much wonder and surprise as would have been an Egyptian
pyramid. Oat cakes, oatmeal porridge and treacle, were the condiments of hundreds.
Agriculture was then in its infancy, farmers would neither grow wheat nor feed beef, and the masses
were reduced to the necessity of living on the oatmeal ground at Brough Mill, which for many years
belonged to the Kirk family who were farmers and millers, and withal as respectable a family as any
Hope Dale could boast of at the beginning of this century.
Respectable and business-like as were the Kirks, there was another person connected with the
Brough Corn Mill that contributed considerably to its fame and usefulness, namely Abraham Andrew,
the journeyman miller. As a rule, journeyman millers, as well as master millers, have notoriety
peculiar to themselves for certain vices and crimes. Abraham had either voluntarily or involuntarily
shaken off the proclivities said to be peculiar to his profession, and could boast that he stood upon his
own individual merits and only asked to be tested by his actions and life to know whether he was
honest or dishonest, just or unjust, virtuous or vicious. Abraham's virtues had made his name legion,
and if he was not opulent, he had an influence for good over his generation, and was silently modifying
the conduct of those who should live after him.
ABRAHAM ANDREW (1778 - 1841)
was a man of few words, and as definite in his questions and answers as the multiplication table; he
seldom spoke but in the language of the Old or New Testament, as when spoken to about the honour
of his calling he said an honest miller was a "wonder to many". No man was further removed from
expediency than Abraham Andrew. He never understood that word either philosophically or
practically. He spoke the truth for truth's sake, irrespective of results. Abraham acted honestly, not
because it was either the best or the worst policy, but because it was just and right and his duty to
both God and man so to act.
Such a person might well add fame to Brough Corn Mill when, as a rule, honest millers are only social
phenomena to be found at long intervals, their scarcity being the cause of their inexplicability.
Abraham was not a representative man of what millers were, but a type of what they ought to be; he
did not live to walk in the beaten and stereotyped paths of either ancient or contemporary millers, but
to chart out untrodden paths in their social deserts that, if walked in, would raise the profession from
disgrace to honour, both for the millers of his own generation and futurity.
Of Abraham's birth and parentage we know but little. He was born in 1778 somewhere in Hope Dale
(possibly at Brough where he continued to live for the rest of his life), as his language and costume
were as provincial as those of any of the natives. His wife Elizabeth was born in 1786 but died when
she was only 41, having given birth to nine children in the twenty years between 1806 and 1826.
12
Amy Moore
Brough, like many other towns and villages, not only in this but in every other country, owes its
existence to a good supply of water. It is at Brough where Bradwell and Hope Brooks meet, unite and
give up their original names to be afterwards called the River Noe. Just at the place where these two
brooks meet, stands the Corn Mill before spoken of.
Brough Corn Mill, though it cannot boast architectural beauty, is to many esteemed sacred; much
more so than Hope Church was fifty years back, from its dispensation of oatmeal amongst the lead
miners of
Bradwell and villages adjoining. Brough Corn Mill was then the one thing needful. At that time the
lead miners, their families and all domestic animals, were fed on oatmeal ground at Brough Corn Mill.
A sack of flour was viewed with as much wonder and surprise as would have been an Egyptian
pyramid. Oat cakes, oatmeal porridge and treacle, were the condiments of hundreds.
Agriculture was then in its infancy, farmers would neither grow wheat nor feed beef, and the masses
were reduced to the necessity of living on the oatmeal ground at Brough Mill, which for many years
belonged to the Kirk family who were farmers and millers, and withal as respectable a family as any
Hope Dale could boast of at the beginning of this century.
Respectable and business-like as were the Kirks, there was another person connected with the
Brough Corn Mill that contributed considerably to its fame and usefulness, namely Abraham Andrew,
the journeyman miller. As a rule, journeyman millers, as well as master millers, have notoriety
peculiar to themselves for certain vices and crimes. Abraham had either voluntarily or involuntarily
shaken off the proclivities said to be peculiar to his profession, and could boast that he stood upon his
own individual merits and only asked to be tested by his actions and life to know whether he was
honest or dishonest, just or unjust, virtuous or vicious. Abraham's virtues had made his name legion,
and if he was not opulent, he had an influence for good over his generation, and was silently modifying
the conduct of those who should live after him.
ABRAHAM ANDREW (1778 - 1841)
was a man of few words, and as definite in his questions and answers as the multiplication table; he
seldom spoke but in the language of the Old or New Testament, as when spoken to about the honour
of his calling he said an honest miller was a "wonder to many". No man was further removed from
expediency than Abraham Andrew. He never understood that word either philosophically or
practically. He spoke the truth for truth's sake, irrespective of results. Abraham acted honestly, not
because it was either the best or the worst policy, but because it was just and right and his duty to
both God and man so to act.
Such a person might well add fame to Brough Corn Mill when, as a rule, honest millers are only social
phenomena to be found at long intervals, their scarcity being the cause of their inexplicability.
Abraham was not a representative man of what millers were, but a type of what they ought to be; he
did not live to walk in the beaten and stereotyped paths of either ancient or contemporary millers, but
to chart out untrodden paths in their social deserts that, if walked in, would raise the profession from
disgrace to honour, both for the millers of his own generation and futurity.
Of Abraham's birth and parentage we know but little. He was born in 1778 somewhere in Hope Dale
(possibly at Brough where he continued to live for the rest of his life), as his language and costume
were as provincial as those of any of the natives. His wife Elizabeth was born in 1786 but died when
she was only 41, having given birth to nine children in the twenty years between 1806 and 1826.
12
