Testimony in Brake vs See gives many, many day to day details about the goings on at the Brake Mill. It seems to have been quite a little village. Michael had a blacksmith shop ran by his slave man Isaac, who after emancipation took the name Isaac Kent. There was a carpenter shop where they made coffins and bedsteads. A saw and grist mill ran full time.
People seem to have drifted in and out, hanging around, living for a time, working on the place.
At least one by marriage relative of the Brakes had an illegitimate child raised there. Mary Ann Radcliff's chickens had to be chased out of the corn, and a still was in operation making liquor from the fruits grown on the place. Yes, this was a small village, later a post office. These details are all to be found in the file above mentioned, as well as testimony that Leonard Brake had three children who died in infancy, giving us identities for three of the unknown burials in the cemetery there. It is clear from Brake vs See that Michael Brake was in the habit of taking in orphans.