As the Stone Turns

The rasp of stone on stone, the rumble of gears—these are sounds of Rhode Island’s history, the grinding of its traditional cornmeal pancake, the johnny cake. At the Kenyon Corn Meal Co. in the village of Usquepaugh, millers Paul Drumm Jr. and son Paul III share a devotion to the time-honored tradition of slow stone-grinding that produces a texture distinct from today’s steel-ground products.

At Kenyon’s, stone milling of johnny cake cornmeal has changed little since its inception. Grain is poured into the hopper and drops into a chute, which feeds the corn down into a hole in the center of the top or runner stone. That stone, propelled by a series of linked belts, pulleys, and gears, rotates above the stationary “bed” stone. The ground grain channels down a spout to a barrel. Kenyon’s millstones, made of Westerly, R.I., granite, are so hard they flake the grain paper-thin rather than crushing it—making perfect johnny cake flour.

The origin of this celebrated pancake is in dispute. Lexicographer Noah Webster referred to “journeycake,” a durable loaf baked to eat on the pioneer trail. When Colonial pronunciation dropped the “r,” the result was jonnycake. Some favor the etymology offered in Loudermilk’s 1878 History of Cumberland (Maryland), which tells how trappers learned to make these cakes from the Shawnee tribe, transforming the word shawneecake into johnny cake.

Its recipes are contested as well. Johnny cakes can be thick with a crusty exterior or thin and crispy; made with scalded milk or boiling water; eaten plain; or drizzled with butter and maple syrup.

All agree, though, that the johnny cake is an American Indian creation. White flint corn, the ingredient of choice, originally was cultivated by the Narragansetts, and at one time grew throughout Rhode Island. Today, because of its hard kernel and low yield, white flint corn is rare, though purists insist that only its rich, full flavor and creamy color make authentic johnny cakes. A local farmer provides a limited quantity to Kenyon’s, which offers ground white flint cornmeal as well as the more common white dent.

Son Paul believes milling has been continuous on the site since the late 1600s, though the current building is not so old. Built by John Tarbox in 1886, it was purchased in 1909 by C.D. Kenyon, who recognized a mass market for the sale of stone-ground meals and flours. He and his son, Archie, sold johnny cake meal in bags. When World War I rationing gave corn a newfound popularity, the Kenyons thrived. But by the 1940s, Archie had sold the mill, and a succession of owners ran it into the ground—until the Drumms bought it in 1971.

At first, they didn’t mean to. When a back injury hastened Paul Jr.’s departure from a computer career, he and wife, Mary Ellen, decided to open a gift shop. Seeking an empty barn for the venture, they searched the local newspaper and found an ad: “For Sale—Business Opportunity Grist Mill.” Perfect, they thought—until the broker informed them it wasn’t an empty building, but a going business.

“Of course, he neglected to mention which direction the business was going,” Paul remembers, laughing.

Undaunted, Paul and Mary Ellen had fallen in love with the red clapboard gristmill beside the Queen’s River. Besides, they were inheriting the skills of Charlie Walmsley, a Narragansett Indian who had grown up eating johnny cakes and who worked in Kenyon’s alongside his father since age 14. Though Charlie died in 1983, after working 66 years as a miller, he passed his skills on to Drumm.

“What I knew about mill work was from my childhood,” Paul Jr. says. “I grew up in Portsmouth, and as a youngster lived on Mill Lane where Boyd’s Gristmill was located at the bottom of the hill. When my neighbor helped his father shell and bag corn at Boyd’s, I sometimes would lend a hand. That was the extent of my milling experience.”

Today, the father-son Drumm team works to keep the art of stone grinding and the taste for johnny cakes alive.

“I feel we’re caketakers of a tradition,” Paul Jr. says. “And I’m thankful my son has taken to it and will continue.”

Cynthia Elyce Rubin is a frequent contributor to American Profile.

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