After the death of her father, John, in 1758, Mary Atcheson Laughlin inherited a mill on the Big Spring in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. By terms of her will dated December 26, 1815, she left one half of the tract of land and the grist mill inherited from her father to her son, James Laughlin. The mill belonged to the Laughlin family for four generations. In 1896, John Laughlin’s heirs sold the mill and the nearby Cool Spring to the company which was building Newville’s public water system. The system’s pumps were housed in the mill, and Cool Spring was used as the water source.

—Brief history courtesy of the Newville Historical Society