Great Horse-Black Pepper Siemon AKA Nate

Around 1720, a sawmill was believed to have existed at Leaming's Mill, known as "Shingle Landing" in its earliest days. The area also had a public road, a boat landing, and a bridge-like structure. In 1790, Joseph Smith and Henry Drinker purchased 24,000 acres (97 km 2) of land known as the Union Mills Tract. They formed the Union Estates Company, built lumber mills along the Maurice River and established a dam to power these new mills. Joseph Buck, an American Revolutionary War veteran who served under General George Washington, was part of a group that purchased the land in the area in 1795 and laid out the plans for what would become Millville.