The site of the mill was originally an Indian burial ground, with the Shawnee and Delaware tribes living nearby. The Indians were presumably displeased when the first white man on the land, George Beck arrived from North Carolina with his sons to the Indiana Territory in 1807, after brief stops in Kentucky. Once establishing a place to live near the future site of his mill and building a primitive shelter, he retrieved the rest of his family, who were living near Louisville, Kentucky, a few months later.