Dutch Mills (Washington County)

aka: Hermannsburg (Washington County)

Dutch Mills, known as Hermannsburg prior to 1871, is an unincorporated community located in far western Washington County, roughly a mile from the Oklahoma border. The Baron Fork (historically called the Barren Fork) of the Illinois River served the original settlement as a source of water power for the mills, erroneously named for the Dutch rather than the German (Deutsch) settlers who founded it.

In 1848, failed democratic revolutions across what is now Germany prompted an exodus of disillusioned young idealists. Among them was engineer Johann Hermann, who had been educated in Austria, Belgium, and France, and briefly served in a Freischar (volunteer unit) in Germany before following a friend from the University of Heidelberg to America. He established Hermannsburg in 1850.

After acquiring the land, Hermann married, and his wife, Nani Wilhelmi Hermann, came there from Missouri. They were joined by his brother Karl, who had married her sister Lina Wilhelmi, and the women’s brother, Julius Wilhelmi, and his family. The Hermanns mapped out a township and established a post office and general store, a grist mill and sawmill, and a wool-carding machine; Johann Hermann also served as a de facto doctor for the area. Other Germans living at the settlement mentioned in the family’s reminiscences include Dannenberg, Fischer, Kraft, and Schmidt. According to Karl Hermann, the Germans had cordial relations with their Cherokee neighbors, whose language they studied, and claimed that the Cherokee considered the immigrants “a tribe like their own.” The community thrived from 1850 to 1862.

When Arkansas debated secession, the Hermanns, deeply familiar with the horrors of civil strife due to Germany’s Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), urged their neighbors to reject it. The measure passed, however, “under the pressure of Southern terrorists.” Karl (known by a hated nickname “Charlie” locally) described a tense encounter after the vote:

“On the way back from the polling place, in the company of several neighbors, ‘Malloy’—a fiery rebel with a nasal falsetto voice—asked triumphantly: ‘Well Charlie, how do you like the election?’ And in well-meant German frankness, I replied, ‘I do not like it at all,’ adding enthusiastically: ‘Never desert the old ship Union!’ An alarming silence followed that statement, and after I briefly mentioned the horrors of a civil war, it seemed advisable to me to drop the matter. Presumably the survivors of that ride later recalled my words with painful feelings.”

Indeed, when Karl was moving through the war-ravaged town with Union troops, he discovered Malloy’s body lying in a pool of blood.

The families buried gold, silver, and other money in advance of the war, some of which was recovered afterward. They also hid the best of the store’s goods to avoid selling them for Confederate paper money; they accepted such money for the remaining wares only to pretend loyalty. For the same reason, the Hermann brothers agreed to house Missouri secessionists temporarily during campaigns, including Governor Claiborne Jackson and General John S. Marmaduke. Once fighting commenced, the German men fled to the woods to avoid conscription, eventually finding refuge in the Unionist Camp Babcock of Brigadier General James Blunt; their brother-in-law, Franz Wilhelmi, served as a captain under General Samuel Curtis.

In letters and diaries, the German women recounted their harrowing daily existence in Hermannsburg: being uncertain of whether approaching troops were friends or enemies, hiding in the basement to avoid gunfire, and being robbed at gunpoint by marauders. Lina Hermann wrote on December 15, 1862: “Every day, rebels come, sometimes to me, sometimes to Nani. I have been baking bread for three days, and it is always taken away from me. The children are crying, our distress is great.”

The Germans finally escaped as part of a Union wagon train in December 1862 after receiving a letter of passage from Brigadier General Francis Herron. Nani Hermann died three months later, which the family blamed on the “terrors in Arkansas and tribulations of the flight.” Johann Hermann returned to Germany with their children and studied medicine, after which the family eventually settled in St. Louis, Missouri. After the war, they attempted to recover some of their investment in Hermannsburg but discovered that even the mill stone and boiler had been stolen and all the buildings burned down; they sold the land and complained bitterly that they did not even receive half of the initial price for it.

Although Karl Hermann recounted in his memoirs how he was repulsed by the practice of slavery in Arkansas, he and his wife Lina purchased an enslaved woman named Melinda for $950. They claimed they had no alternative, as they could not find reliable help to manage the homestead and care for their children. Melinda, who learned German, disappeared with her own child early in the war, and their fate is unknown.

Today, little remains of the original Hermannsburg. A cemetery, formally donated for public use in 1923 by Lewis Weber (a marker likely misdates this as 1932), is the main remnant. It is believed that two of the original settlers are buried there: Julius Wilhelmi’s wife Luise Wilhelmi, who died about 1860, and Wilhelmi patriarch Wilhelm Wilhelmi, who died in 1861. Dutch Mills still contains a few structures, including the Liberty Baptist Church built in 1883, which also served as the school for a period. The post office closed in 1965. One surviving historic building is the R. L. Leach Store, built in 1925. It served as the community’s grocery store and post office. Restored by the Historic Cane Hill preservation group, it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

For additional information:
Deane, Ernie. “Beauty and Tragedy in the Little Town of Hermannsburg.” Arkansas Gazette, December 11, 1962, p. 23.

“Dutch Mills.” Washington County Historical Society. https://washcohistoricalsociety.org/dutch_mills (accessed November 14, 2025).

“Early Days of Dutch Mills Recalled.” Southwest Times Record (Fort Smith), November 29, 1964, p. 6A.

Hermann, Karl Friedrich. Chronik der aus Ibra (Churhessen) stammenden Familie Johann Heinrich Hermann: 1650 bis 1900. Leipzig: Deutsche Verlagsdruckerei (Merseburger & Walther), 1900. Online at https://archive.org/details/chronikderausibr00hermrich/page/n3/mode/2up (accessed November 14, 2025).

Leach, Jerry. “History and Traditions of the Dutch Mills Cemetery.” https://assets.luginbuel.com/cemeteries/dutch-mills-cemetery-lincoln-ar/documents//Dutch%20Mills%20Cemetery%20History.pdf (accessed November 14, 2025).

Lemke, Walter. The Hermanns of Old Hermannsburg. Fayetteville: Washington County Historical Society, 1965.

“R. L. Leach Store (1925).” Historic Cane Hill. https://historiccanehillar.org/historic-building/r-l-leach-store-1925/ (accessed November 14, 2025).