“L” is for Lucas, Jonathan (ca.1754-1821)

“L” is for Lucas, Jonathan (ca.1754-1821). Millwright. Born in England, Lucas immigrated to South Carolina around 1786, which proved a fortuitous time and place for the arrival of a talented young millwright. The pounding (removal of the outer husk from the rice grains) was by hand with wooden mortars and pestles. Soon after his arrival in South Carolina, Lucas was put to work by a Santee River rice planter to improve the output of his plantation’s rice mill. Lucas’s new pounding mill design was water-powered. In 1791 he built his first tide-powered mill. With the assistance of his son Jonathan, Jr., Lucas constructed rice mills throughout the lowcountry, providing a means for South Carolina planters to clean their ever-growing output of rice. In 1817 Jonathan Lucas built the first steam-powered rice mill in the United States.