“Snowy Refuge”

Mabry Mill in the Meadows of Dan, Virginia is featured in this winter art print.

Image size: 17″ X 20.5″ 

This print frames up to approximately: 28.5″ X 32.75″

Price: $150.00

 Order Your Print Today
Call or text336-341-8029   or   Emailpatriciahobson@yahoo.com 

About the Mabry Mill in the Meadows of Dan, Virginia featured in  “Snowy Refuge”

In this painting, I have captured the beautiful historic Mabry Mill in the Meadows of Dan, Virginia. In the late 1980’s, during the early years of my career as a professional artist I owe a great bit of gratitude to Maggie Cockrham, the owner of Maggie’s Gallery in Elkin, North Carolina. After visiting her gallery and showing her my work, she invited me to come to her gallery every Friday to sit and paint, meet people and show my work. This was the very beginning of the popularity of my work.

One Wednesday, she showed me a photograph that she had of the Mabry Mill in the snow and told me that was where her husband ask her to marry him. She encouraged me to do a painting featuring the scene in the photo. I took her picture and made a sketch of it on canvas and added the the bright red pair of cardinals sitting up front on the snow laden pine branches thus the name “Snowy Refuge.”

Well, am certainly glad that I took her suggestion because this has been one of the very best selling prints that I have ever done. Until recently, I thought that I had sold all the prints. One day when my husband was organizing our inventory, he found a very few of these prints that we had forgotten about. Fortunately for you, I have decided to add them to my website for sale.

This print will add will add a bit of peaceful beauty to any room of your home or office.

 Save your time and energy. Contact us about framing this print just for you! 

Below is a brief history of the mill.

Along the Blue Ridge Parkway sits Mabry Mill in the Meadows of Dan, Virginia, located at Milepost 176. Born in 1867 in Patrick Co, Virginia, Edwin Boston Mabry was one of the fifth generation of the Mabry family to live here in these mountains. Early on before 1890, Ed had a water wheel turned lathe that enabled him to make furniture for himself and for sale. Later him and his wife moved to West Virginia where he worked as a blacksmith in the coal fields.

In 1903 the Mabry family moved back to the Meadows of Dan where he began work building what is now known as Mabry Mill. Early on it was a blacksmith and wheelwright shop. Later, it became a sawmill. Ed was truly a jack of all trades. Within two years, it was a fully operational gristmill. After five more years the front part of the mill was finished it became a lathe for turning wheel hubs, a tongue and groove lathe, a planer and a jigsaw.

Over the years, Mabry acquired adjacent tracks of land in order to have more water to power the mill. He was an easy-going, honest and hard  working as well as being a Primitive Baptist and staunch Republican. Ed was a creative man that was able to make most everything he and his wife needed including furniture. He then bartered with the items that he made for a lot of the other things that they needed.

Ed and his wife never had children; but, the sufficiency of the hard working Blue Ridge mountain people lives on through the mill and properties he left behind.

Today the mill is open seasonally for tours and demonstrations of the crafts of the mountain people. Beside the mill is the Mabry Mill Restaurant and Gift shop. It too is open seasonally. The restaurant serves a delicious country-style menu, featuring Sweet Potatoes, Cornmeal, Buckwheat, Blueberry and Apple Pancakes. Breakfast is served all day. Lunch and dinner entrees include Barbecue Pulled Pork, Chicken Pot Pie and homemade Blackberry Cobbler. The gift shop features Virginia crafts and foods including locally ground grits, cornmeal and buckwheat flour, as well as a wide selection of Mabry Mill and Blue Ridge Parkway-inspired gifts, clothing, books, music and souvenirs. I highly recommend a visit to the Mill. There are many places to stay in the area including a number of cabins that are available for rent.

The Mabry Mill in the Meadows of Dan is definitely a place to visit!

 Save your time and energy. Contact us about framing this print just for you!