The merchant mill was not a business venture in itself, but a facility in the business of exporting flour or supplying ship’s bread. The merchant miller did not make his profit through the provision of a milling service; he actually bought the grain and processed it on his own account, making a profit or loss on the sale of the product. In many instances the merchant miller not only ground wheat into flour, but also baked the flour into bread for export—particularly in the form of ship’s biscuit. The owner of a custom mill, on the other hand, did not buy and sell grain at all, but found his income as a portion or toll of the grain he milled. The pure custom mill was a rarity in Virginia, however, being limited to a few establishments in and around the towns of Manchester, Petersburg, Norfolk, Alexandria, and Williamsburg. A mill in Yorktown, too, was presumably of this sort. In 1711 the owners of land on the York River just below Yorktown Creek deeded a parcel to William Buckner for a windmill, on condition that he “grind for the donors 12 bbls. of Indian corn without toll.” A view of Yorktown drawn about 1850 shows an abandoned smock mill—very likely the original one—standing lonely and forlorn on the hill in question. _HOW WAS IT IN WILLIAMSBURG?_ Very little information about milling in Williamsburg has survived from colonial days—or at any rate has been unearthed by diligent research. We do know that Williamsburg was considered to offer many choice locations, and that several mills were erected in the town or in its immediate vicinity before the Revolution. As far back as 1699, when the burgesses were thinking of moving the capital from Jamestown to Middle Plantation (as Williamsburg was then named), a student of the College of William and Mary extolled the proposed site in a formal speech, one of several made to an audience that included the governor and his council as well as the burgesses. The college itself was already located at Middle Plantation, on the ridge between the James and York rivers and with creeks flowing to each. In the words of the student orator, “The neighbourhood of these two brave creeks gives an Opportunity of making as many water mills as a good Town can have occasion for, and the highness of the land affords great conveniency for as many Wind mills as can ever be wanting.” All the known watermills lay outside the corporate limits of the city. The nearest, apparently, was a paper mill built by William Parks, founder of the _Virginia Gazette_, and described by him as “The first Mill of the Kind, that ever was erected in this Colony.” It stood about a half-mile south of town on a stream that is known to this day as “Paper Mill Creek.”