Documenting the interpretation history of the Mill at Lang Pioneer Village Museum
Final Report
By
Victoria Veenstra
Completed for: Lang Pioneer Village Museum (Contact: Joe Corrigan)
Supervising Professors: Chris Dummitt, Michael Eamon, Jennine Hurl-Eamon
Trent Community Research Centre Project Coordinator: Matthew Hayes
Department: History
Course Name: Master’s Thesis
Date of Project Submission: March 2017
Project ID: 4666
Trent Community Research Centre
www.trentcentre.ca
Lang Pioneer Village Museum Mill Interpretation Research
Victoria Veenstra 2016
1 Table of Contents
The Water Mill – Poem 4 Figures 6
Historical Details Introduction – Living History: Engaging with Difficult Knowledge 9 Timeline 25 Canada & Ontario Context 27 Otonabee Township 42 o Other Local Mills 45 o Other Activities 46 o Distilleries 55 Lang Mill Setup 58 o Constructing a Mill 58 . Millwrights 58 . Milldams 58 . Walls 59 . Grindstones 60 . Rollers 62 . Yield 62 o Lang Details 63 o Furnishings 64 . Spittoons 64 o Oatmeal Mill 65 Early Mills and Grinding 67 o Automatic Flour Milling 69 o Dangers 71 . Accidents 71 . Floods 72 . Fires 72 . Recent Fires 75 Millers 77 Farmers & Wheat Growing 82 o Cows and Wheat 87 Mill Owners 89 o Mill Ownership Chart 89 o Thomas Short’s Foreclosure 92 Mill Owner Biographies 96 o Resources Related to Owners Mill Managers 117 o Mill Managers Chart 117 o Mill Manager Biographies 121 Bread 130
Running the Mill
2 Current Milling Process 134 o Diagram 135 Historical Milling Process 136 Wheat & Wheat Kernels 138 Mill Machinery 141
Operations Mill Opening (Spring) 160 Prepping for Milling 164 Tips for Milling 166 Mill Closing (Fall) 167
Bibliography 169
Appendix A) Ownership Documents a. Ownership Chart b. Abstract Index c. Instruments B) Maps C) Photo Collection D) Newspaper Collection: In chronological order. E) Oral Histories a. Daisy (Duncan) Fowler b. Frances Cardwell – Lang Archives c. Janet Gunn d. Nick Nickels e. Frances Cardwell – Interview “Mill Interpretation”, with Victoria Veenstra July 11, 2016 F) Primary Sources a. F.G. Ash b. Heideman Progress Report c. Humphries Account Book d. Short Death Record e. Gunn Marriage Certificate f. Short Marriage Certificate g. Lang Manual ORCA Sheilagh Grant h. Family Trees i. ORCA Five Year Plan 1980 j. ORCA Historic Sites Budget 1977 G) Personal Correspondence a. Al Seymour b. Beth-Anne Mendez
3 The Water Mill By Sarah Doudly Clarke
Listen to the water mill, All the livelong day – How the clicking of the wheel Wears the hours away. Languidly the autumn wind Stirs the greenwood leaves: From the field the reapers sing, Binding up the sheaves; And a memory o’er my mind As a spell is cast – The mill will never grind With the water that is past.
Take the lesson to yourself, Loving heart and true; Golden years are fleeting by: Youth is passing, too. Strive to make the most of life, Lose no happy day: Time will never bring you back Chances swept away. Leave no tender word unsaid, Love while love shall last – The mill will never grind With the water that is past.
Work while yet the daylight shines, Man of thought and will; Never does the steamlet glide Useless by the mill; Wait not till to-morrow’s sun Beams upon your way, All this you can call your own Lies in this – to-day. Power, intellect and health May not always last – The mill cannot grind With the water that is past.
Oh, the wasted hours of life That have drifted by; Oh, the good we might have done, Lost without a sigh: Love we once might have saved
4 By a single word. Tho’ghts conceived but ne’r penned, Perishing unheard. Take the proverb to thine heart, Take! Oh, hold it fast! The mill will never grist With the water that is passed.
(Floyd) Weekly News, 12 June 1895, pg 1 Franklin F. Webb and Ricky L. Cox The Water-Powered Mills of Floyd County, Virginia: Illustrated Histories, 1770-2010. Jefferson: McFarland & Company Inc. 2012
5
List of Figures
If not otherwise stated photos are taken by the author.
Figure 1 – Exports of Ontario wheat and flour by ultimate destination, 1838-70 John McCallum, Unequal Beginnings: Agriculture and Economic Development in Quebec and Ontario until 1870 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980), 17.
Figure 2 – Relative Important of Crops and Animals of Different Farms 1805-45 John David Wood, Making Ontario: Agricultural Colonization and Landscape Re-creation before the Railway (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s
Figure 3 – Net exports of Ontario wheat and flour and price of wheat, 1850-71 John David Wood, Making Ontario: Agricultural Colonization and Landscape Re-creation before the Railway (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2000) 19.
Figure 4 – Production and consumption in Canada, 1871 Michael Hart, A Trading Nation: Canadian Trade Policy from Colonialism to Globalization, (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2002) 66.
Figure 5 – The “Choate Canal” blasted out of the rock at Gilchrist Bay to provide a channel between Stoney and White (now Dummer) Lakes. Jean Murray Cole, Origins: The History of Dummer Township (Dummer: Township of Dummer, 1993), 73.
Figure 6 – Mills on the Indian River. Dianne Robnik, The Mills of Peterborough County (Peterborough: Trent Valley Archives, 2006).
Figure 7 – Industries at Lang Developed by the author from the local directories.
Figure 8 – Whiskey Advertisement Peterborough Examiner June 1 1860
Figure 9 – ‘S’ pieces on building exterior used for support. Photo By Author (2016)
Figure 10 – Shaft bearing housing mill exterior. Photo By Author (2016)
Figure 11 – Patterns carved on millstones by millwright John Storck and Walter Dorwin Teague, Flour for Man’s Bread: A History of Milling, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1952), 104.
Figure 12 – Mortar and pestle style of grinder used by Canadian first nations.
6 John Storck and Walter Dorwin Teague, Flour for Man’s Bread: A History of Milling, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1952), 45.
Figure 13 abc – Types of waterwheels Adam Lucas, Wind, Water, Work: Ancient and Medieval Milling Technology, (Boston: Brill, 2006),31.
Figure 14 - Roller floor of the Los Angeles mill. John Storck and Walter Dorwin Teague, Flour for Man’s Bread: A History of Milling (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1952), 320.
Figure 15 - Part of the purifier floor of the Los Angeles plant of General Mills. John Storck and Walter Dorwin Teague, Flour for Man’s Bread: A History of Milling (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1952), 320.
Figure 16 – Insurance Advertisement Peterborough Examiner October, 20 1859 pg 1
Figure 17 – Lang Mill Burnt Original Mill Binder, Lang Archives.
Figure 18 - Certificate of Inspection 987.10.2bu Lang Archives
Figure 19- Close up Photo of Scale Photo by the Author (2016)
Figure 20 – The year of four farmers: various years (1805-45), locations, and stages. John David Wood, Making Ontario: Agricultural Colonization and Landscape Re-creation before the Railway (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2000), 90.
Figure 21 – Threshing with a flail on the barn floor, one of the manual methods of threshing wheat in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Felicity Leung, Grist and Flour Mills in Ontario (Canada: Parks Canada National Historic Parks and Sites Branch, 1981), 35.
Figure 22 – Winnowing grain from the chaff using a shaking screen and the wind, principles reproduced in machines designed for cleaning grain in mills. Felicity Leung, Grist and Flour Mills in Ontario (Canada: Parks Canada National Historic Parks and Sites Branch, 1981), 36.
Figure 23 – Thomas Short Family Tree Created By Author
Figure 24 - Steamer Otonabee on Rice Lake: A reconstruction, based on a sketch by E. Whitefield 1855. Richard Tatley, Steamboating on the Trent Severn, (Belleville: Mika Publishing Company, 1978), 19.
Figure 25 – Richard Short Family Tree
7 Developed By the Author Based On Nelson, Forest to Farm, 430. / Short Family History, Otonabee- South Monaghan Historical Society / Cemetery Transcripts Box 3, 2 Keene Upper Cemetery, Otonabee Township, Accessed at the Trent Valley Archives.
Figure 26 – Current Milling Techniques Drawing by the Author 2016
Figure 27 - Wheat on its shaft. Photo by Author (2016)
Figure 28 - Wheat kernel with seed coat (left) and without (right). Photo by Author (2016)
Figure 29 – The Parts of a Wheat Kernel Photo by the Author (2016)
8
Living History: Engaging with Difficult Knowledge Introduction The aim of many living history sites is to transport their visitors back in time
– to let them experience life as it really happened in various historical eras. Many visitors leave with the perception that life was simpler back then, which is a problematic assumption. The uncomplicated lifestyle that living history sites portray has been critiqued by many academics including Thomas Schlereth head of
American Studies at Notre Dame.1 Lang Pioneer Village located just outside of
Peterborough, Ontario still offers this type of narrative. Expanding the stories told at Lang to encompass more complex narratives that include social history rather than just milling process mechanics would offer the site many benefits, not only a more accurate version of history but also potentially attracting more visitors and offering them a richer experience. Those sites that have incorporated diverse stories and complex historical narratives have benefitted from increased visitation and have better met visitor expectations. Living history sites offer a place to bring together cutting edge academic work with a wider public.
Origins Skansen located in Stockholm, Sweden is generally credited with being the first open-air museum. Founded in 1891 by Artur Hazelius, Skansen united
“artefacts with their functional context” which “linked the artefact to people, events,
1 Jay Anderson, Time Machines: The World of Living History (Nashville: The American Association for State and Local History, 1984), 73.
9 and places in a novel way.”2 Living history museums crossed the ocean to take form in North America as house museums. In 1853, a group of activist women united to save Mount Vernon from destruction.3 Living history sites continued to grow and expand throughout the 1900s. Leading the way in larger complexes was Henry Ford with Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. During the 1920s, John D.
Rockefeller Jr. committed to restoring Colonial Williamsburg. These sites arose out of a sense of anxiety about the pace of “urban development” and the changes brought about by the widespread use of the car.4 However, living history sites proved popular as leisure time increased and cars provided improved access to more remote locations. This resulted in the construction of more sites for economic and tourism reasons. One of Canada’s largest living history sites, Louisbourg, was conceptualised both as a work project during its construction but also as a long term industry to support Cape Breton Island as coal and steel industries declined.5 Still other sites, including Lang Pioneer Village, were set up to mark Canada’s centennial in 1967.
Critiques Since the development of the early living history sites including Skansen in
Stockholm, Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, and Plimoth Plantation in
Massachusetts, these sites have been critiqued for their claims of offering an accurate experience of history. John D. Rockefeller Jr. spent a lot of money to make
2 Alan Gordon, Time Travel: Tourism and the Rise of the Living History Museum in Mid-Twentieth-Century Canada (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006), 41. 3 Gordon, Time Travel, 42. 4 Gordon, Time Travel, 44. 5 Terrence MacLean, Louisbourg Heritage: From Ruins to Reconstruction (Sydney: University College of Cape Breton Press, 1995), 20.
10 Williamsburg completely accurate, pouring money into research and even going as far as to move a completed building because it was found to be slightly off its original foundation. Despite these efforts, or perhaps because of them, they have become a center for criticisms amongst academic scholars.6 An early critique of these sites was of their immaculate landscapes. Historians, such as Scott Magelssen, said that historic sites needed to become less pristine. This led leading to developments such as “road apples” or horse manure left on the streets in
Williamsburg.7 However, critiques of these sites went beyond aesthetics. In his book The Past is a Foreign Country David Lowenthal provided one of the first critiques of the ‘authentic.’8 He pointed out some of the myriad difficulties surrounding claims to historical authenticity, such as people ignoring knowledge that did not fit with their point of view, people who remade the past as it “ought” to have been, and those who “refashion” history to fit what people would have done if they had modern materials.9 Similarly, Thomas Schlereth argues that living history sites are too simplistic. Schlereth is concerned by the homogeneity that he sees in these sites:
Historical museum villages are still, with a few exceptions, remarkably peaceable kingdoms, planned communities with over-manicured landscapes or idyllic small towns where the entire populace lives in harmony. This visitor to such sites, who usually does not see the artefacts of convict labourers, domestic servants, hired hands or slaves in the statistical proportion in which such material culture would have cluttered most communities comes away
6 Scott Magelssen, Living History Museums: Undoing History Through Performance (Toronto: Scarecrow Press, 2007), 30. 7 Magelssen, Living History Museums, 30. 8 David Lowenthal, The Past Is A Foreign Country (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). 9 Lowenthal, The Past Is A Foreign Country, 328-9.
11 from the museum village with a romanticized, even utopian perspective of the popularly acclaimed “good old days.”10
These scholars view living history sites as places that provide politicised metanarratives. They drew attention to the “symbolic importance” that has been invested in pioneers and the way in which such sites have promoted national unity through history.11
Failure to Adapt Many institutions have been unable to respond to these critiques effectively.
Some sites do not even attempt to grapple with these issues. The Genesee Country
Village and Museum located in New York State explicitly offers a “Good Old Days
Camp.”12 This contributes to the idea that the past offered a more wholesome lifestyle than the present. Sites attempting to discus complex history still face hurdles. For example, extensive research was done at the Old World Wisconsin site as it was developed. Interesting findings regarding variations in material culture between cultural groups was discovered. However, despite developing diverse and complex narratives, the staff at the site have not been able to communicate it effectively. The seasonal nature of employment at the site has resulted in
“superficial” historical messages.13 Old World Wisconsin is not the only site to struggle with training staff effectively. Historian Pamela Peacock also observed
10 Thomas Schlereth as cited in Jay Anderson, Time Machines: The World of Living History (Nashville: The American Association for State and Local History, 1984), 73. 11 Gordon, Time Travel, 113, 95. 12 Genesee Country Village and Museum, Explore & Learn, Supper Camps, Good Old Days Camp: Summer Sampler, Accessed September 7, 2016 https://www.gcv.org/Explore-Learn/Summer-Camps/Good-Old-Days-Camp- Summer-Sampler 13 Warren Leon and Margaret Piatt, “Living History Museums” in History Museums in the United States: A Critical Assessment edited by Warren Leon and Roy Rosenzweig (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1989), 80.
12 similar difficulties in training high turnover staff at Fort Henry to address gendered topics like pregnancy.14
Balmoral Grist Mill in Nova Scotia has faced similar problems, in a statistical analysis of the site Robert Summerby-Murray wrote that Balmoral’s “key focus is on process technologies.”15 The process oriented interpretation prevented Balmoral from providing diverse and complex narratives. The Nova Scotia Museum system
(comprised of 28 provincial sites) recognised this and developed an interpretive master plan to encourage their sites to expand their storytelling. The plan included three categories of content: maintain, enhance, and develop. The mill was already telling the stories of waterpower and agriculture. However in recognition of the necessity of responding to academic critiques the mill was told to develop their stories around geology, commerce, and employment to name a few.16 Balmoral faces challenges in implementing these suggestions because of seasonal staffing and there has been no follow up on Summerby-Murry’s analysis to understand the impacts of the interpretive master plan. Despite having the information to expand to different themes sites have difficulty backing that up in reality.
Successes However, there are sites that have responded well to these critiques and this success is not reserved for large sites with large budgets. A practical example of this
14 Pamela Kirsten Peacock, Interpreting a Past: Presenting Gender History at Living History sites in Ontario (PhD Thesis: Queen’s University, 2011), 315. 15 Robert Summerby-Murray, “Regenerating Cultural Identity Through Industrial Heritage Tourism: Visitor Attitudes, Entertainment, and the Search for Authenticity at Mills, Mines, and Museums of Maritime Canada.” London Journal of Canadian Studies 30 (2015), 77. 16 Nova Scotia Museum, Interpretive Master Plan, (2009), 165. Accessed September 7, 2016 http://museum.novascotia.ca/about-nsm/interpretive-master-plan
13 is the Ximenez-Fatio house in St. Augustine, Florida. The house had been presented for many years as a “romanticized” and “imperial” story of the lifestyle of a wealthy
Spanish businessman.17 A new approach added to this story fresh information and different perspectives. The research revealed that after 1825 the house was owned by successive well-to-do women who had fallen on hard times and turned to running the house as a hotel.18 This narrative also encompassed tourism, which
“offered a particularly appealing theme for modern museum visitors, many of whom were tourists themselves.”19 The fresh approach was more diverse including the experiences of women, which altered the way that the story of the house was being told; the story became more relatable to visitors and attendance improved.20
Other sites have begun dealing with even more complex social topics and problems. For example:
Doon Heritage Crossroads is a revised, former nineteenth-century pioneer village with a new cut-off date in 1914. Instead of inviting us to come back to a “better place in time,” this museum’s brochure warns us up-front about social and economic problems affecting rural Waterloo County at the dawn of World War I.21
Since Doon’s transition to this type of history the site has experienced growth and in
2010 the site expanded with the opening of the Waterloo Region Museum. Living history site Conner Prairie in Indiana has also delved into deep topics by offering a program called “Follow the North Star.” In this program visitors go to the site in the
17 John A. Herbst, “Historic Houses,” in History Museums in the United States: A Critical Assessment edited by Warren Leon and Roy Rosenzweig (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1989), 105. 18 Herbst, “Historic Houses,” 105. 19 Herbst, “Historic Houses,” 105. 20 Herbst, “Historic Houses,” 106. 21 Mary Tivy, “Museums, Visitors and the Reconstruction of the Past in Ontario,” Material Culture Review 37, (1993), 6.
14 evening and enact the roll of fugitive slaves attempting to find freedom through the
Underground Railroad.22 The program is “nationally acclaimed” and “award- winning.”23 The program was developed from “years of extensive research.”24 This is an example of a site that is dealing with particularly difficult and uncomfortable topics with their visitors. Visitors select this program and are warned that they will experience rough terrain; they deliberately choose to interact with these tough topics showing that visitors want to know about sensitive subjects. The program also helps to challenge various myths surrounding the Underground Railroad.25
This program illustrates the potential for meaningful learning experiences when approaching sophisticated topics.
Mary Miley Theobald, in her book Death by Petticoat, combats the various myths that are perpetuated at living history sites such as the idea that “people were shorter back then.”26 Using resources like this could help interpreters to share more detailed responses to common misconceptions. Theobald’s book was published in partnership with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and shows their commitment to developing their research.
22 Conner Prairie, Things to Do, Events, Follow The North Star, Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.connerprairie.org/Things-To-Do/Events/Follow-the-North- Star/Follow-the-North-Star-3 23 Conner Prairie, Things to Do, Events, Follow The North Star, Accessed September 7, 2016http://www.connerprairie.org/Things-To-Do/Events/Follow-the-North- Star/Follow-the-North-Star-3 24 Conner Prairie, Things to Do, Events, Follow The North Star, Accessed September 7, 2016http://www.connerprairie.org/Things-To-Do/Events/Follow-the-North- Star/Follow-the-North-Star-3 25 Conner Prairie, Education Research, Educators, Classroom Resources, Special Programs, Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.connerprairie.org/Education- Research/Educators/Classroom-Resources/Special-Programs 26 Mary Miley Theobald, Death by Petticoat: American History Myths Debunked (Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2012). Theobald also debunks myths at her blog https://historymyths.wordpress.com/about/
15 Applications for Lang Pioneer Village Lang Pioneer Village and Museum has many areas where they could engage with complex social issues and themes, which would bring together curatorial practise and academic research. Lang has already taken some of the first steps in trying to create updated approaches and to respond to new historiography by creating a fund for community based research projects led by academics or students to develop new resources. There are many examples of how the story of their gristmill could include social issues or updated topics.
For example, much has been written about gender and women that has not been incorporated into a living history setting. Historian Joan Sangster in her article
“Making a Fur Coat: Women, the Labouring Body, and Working-Class History” explains how some women’s labour was hidden or uncompensated and therefore not recognised as labour.27 This article represents an important recognition of women’s labour outside of the home, in this case in the fur trade. However, this important development in understanding women’s labour has not found its way into living history sites:
Entering museums to look at the history of men and women, the visitor will find that women are represented mainly – if not exclusively – in the home. In the social and local history museums which form the majority of all museums they are seated in the parlour, engaged in needlework, lacemaking, or other ladylike pursuits. … The museum visitor might be forgiven for thinking that women in the past did not work outside the home at all, and spent most of their time sitting at home sewing.28
27 Joan Sangster “Making a Fur Coat: Women, the Labouring Body, and Working- Class History,” International Review of Social History, 52 (2007): 241-70. 28 Gaby Porter, “Putting Your House in Order: Representations of Women and Domestic Life,” in The Museum Time Machine: Putting Cultures on Display edited by Robert Lumley (Routledge: London, 1988), 106.
16 Lang could expand its recognition of women in the milling context. There is evidence that millers’ wives helped to refit the silk screens to the sifters. Women could also be addressed in the labour that occurred turning the flour into bread.
This would be a simple way to expand the story at Lang in a meaningful way.
Another area for expansion is the reality of failure for many pioneers. The first mill owner, Thomas Short, went bankrupt. This story offers an opportunity to explore the difficulties surrounding creating industries in isolated areas and how failure could impact families. Although this account could provide a relatable story for visitors or a broader narrative, the story is not frequently told.
Mills have also been recognized as places for community gatherings. The social impact of the mill is an area that could be further interpreted. The social history of the conversation and gossip that occurred when men would arrive to drop off their grain is an important part of understanding culture in Upper Canada. The mill was also a gathering place for families and children. Children would swim there in the summer and skate in the winter. Expanding to include social history would be as simple as including narratives like this.
Likewise, historian Adam Lucas observed that increasingly technology has been studied as a social phenomenon.29 This is another way that Lang could diversify and expand the story of the mill. The mill could be presented based on the people who invented and used them, because the research now exists to support these ideas. Carol Priamo in her book Mills of Canada says: “Too many ‘mill museums’ contain machinery from different periods grouped together with little
29 Adam Lucas, Wind, Water, Work: Ancient and Medieval Milling Technology (Boston: Brill Leiden, 2006), 305.
17 explanation.” Instead of presenting a jumble of machinery, Lang could talk about the various millers who ran the mill and farmers who came to it.
Positive Impacts or Why Engage with Diverse Topics At Lang and similar living history sites, addressing complex topics and doing so accurately will help living history sites to be successful, not only financially with increased visitation but also in the transformative learning opportunities that they can build for visitors. Presenting complex stories that are connected with current historiography is an important part of meeting visitor expectations. In 2014, the
Association of Nova Scotia Museums undertook a study of how Nova Scotians perceive museums; 82% of them agreed that museums were a valuable learning experience.30 In a comparison of six sources of information (museums, historical books, historical sites, history teachers, websites, and family stories) historical sites were perceived as the second most trustworthy source, with museums ranked first.31 Addressing current narratives and historiography is part of honouring that trust. As part of a recent series on historical interpretation Kristin Gallas and James
DeWolf Perry quote studies that show “visitors want to learn both the good and the bad in our [American] nation’s history. More than that, visitors want to talk about this history with us [interpreters] and each other.”32 This is a second example of the importance of addressing current historiography. Without engaging current topics
30 Association of Nova Scotia Museums, “Nova Scotians’ Views on Museum Funding: Telephone Survey (Quantitative)” (2014), 5. Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.ansm.ns.ca/about/ansm-information/museum-fund.html 31 Association of Nova Scotia Museums, “Nova Scotians and their Museums: In-Depth Telephone Interviews (Qualitiative)” (2014), 20. Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.ansm.ns.ca/about/ansm-information/museum-fund.html 32 Kristin Gallas and James De Wolf Perry, Interpreting Slavery at Museums and Historic Sites, (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), xvii.
18 addressed by historians, living history sites stand to lose the trust of the public and fail to meet their expectations.
The diversity of topics offered by social history offers more opportunities to be relatable to visitors. Author Freeman Tilden in his classic book Interpreting our
Heritage suggests that the first principle of interpretation is: “Any interpretation that does not somehow relate what is displayed or described to something within the personality or experience of the visitor will be sterile.”33 For example, a visitor to the Lang mill has likely never ground their own grain, most of them buy their bread from the grocery store. An effective way to start the story of Lang mill would be to relate to the visitors’ experience of bread. Similarily, speaking to visitors about Thomas Short’s mortgage could be more relatable to visitors as they hold their own mortgages, which is a change from the current focus. The diversification of the stories told at living history sites offers the sites an opportunity to appeal to their visitors in new ways.
Museum guru Nina Simons also suggests that diverse history is important. In her arguments for the creation of participatory museums she says “rather than delivering the same content to everyone a participatory institution collects and shares diverse, personalized, and changing content co-produced with visitors.”34
Living history is effective at this because they have interpreters who are able to speak directly with the visitors and information is not mediated by text. Simons’s approach to participatory museums leads to visitor engagement and that
33Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1957), 34. 34 Nina Simons, The Participatory Museum, (Santa Cruz: Museum 2.0, 2010), iii.
19 engagement addresses the most common elements of dissatisfaction from visitors.35
Elements of dissatisfaction include irrelevance, an authoritative institutional voice, and a lack of comfortable social space.36 Simons’s ideas about the participatory museum include providing experiences and tactile opportunities for visitors, meeting the visitor with ideas that matter. These ideas can help a visitor to engage with the past if interpretation is done well. This is why meaningful stories and keeping up with historiography are so important for the future health of living history sites.
Furthermore, living history sites that directly acknowledge how their sites are homogenized or harmonious or the inaccuracies of buildings can appeal to a new kind of tourist: the post-tourist. Rather than seeking out authenticity this tourist “delights in the inauthenticity of the normal tourist experience and finds pleasure in the multiplicity of tourist games.”37 The things that used to be derided as inauthentic can now be pointed out and used as learning opportunities. One site went as far as hiding objects like Post-it pads in the house, so that the visitors had to
“appreciate but also interrogate the validity and discrepancies of the artifactual arrangements.”38 One article argues, “among the most valuable statements a visitor can hear in a living-history museum [is] ‘Historians do not know for sure what the answer to that question is.’”39 This statement includes the visitor in the larger historiographical stream that the site is part of and is an important part of helping visitors understand the limits and disagreements of historical narratives.
35 Simons, The Participatory Museum, iii. 36 Simons, The Participatory Museum, iv. 37 Magelssen, Living History Museums, 133. 38 Terry, Family Ties, 170. 39 Leon, “Living History Museums” 89.
20 Finally, going beyond diverse history to grappling with tough topics in a living history setting has the potential to start societal change. Julia Rose suggests that, “difficult histories describe memories of pain, suffering, oppression and grief that are emotive.”40 Emotion reaches an audience in a very different way than a rational argument sticking with them for longer. Difficult history can cause the learner to become engaged and “rearrange their understandings and responses to oppression and injustices, attesting that the suffering is indeed meaningful in the present.”41 In fact, Rose lists thirty-one different reasons to engage with difficult knowledge including remembrance, offer of reparations, and to motivate research.42
Changing visitors perceptions about justice and illuminating inequality in society is a bold goal. If an interpreter is able to help a visitor to question their bias or perspective for even a short time this is an important indication of the work that addressing difficult history can do.
Mutually Beneficial – Academics and Living History Supporting diverse and complex histories at living history sites requires investment from academic historians but also offers them unique opportunities.
These sites provide a tactile experience that books cannot. John Kouwhenhoven has written, “just as there are sight-thoughts, there are also feel-thoughts, smell- thoughts, taste-thoughts, and sound-thoughts.”43 Living history sites are better set up to communicate these different kinds of ‘thoughts’ and diverse information.
During the reconstruction of Louisburg in Nova Scotia one of the main planners
40 Julia Rose, Interpreting Difficult History at Museums and Historic Sites (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), 4. 41 Rose, Interpreting Difficult History, 7. 42 Rose, Interpreting Difficult History, 50. 43 John Kouwhenhoven as cited in Leon and Piatt, “Living History Museums,” 91.
21 Ronald Way found difficulties in communicating with academics. “As [Way] was fond of saying, the problems of those who write history are easily evaded, but those who rebuild it are obliged to address them.”44 Scholars that want to support and contribute to work being done at historic sites need to think more broadly about the types of questions that living history sites must address. This research requires academic commitment to give diversity to these types of ‘thoughts,’ which is a style that many historians are not accustomed to.
Several opportunities are offered by delving into the demands of living history. These sites have a larger audience than scholarly articles. In advocating for the unique position of living history sites Warren Leon and Roy Rosenzweig pointed out the public involvement the sites. “The 350,000 visitors to Plimouth Plantation probably exceed the cumulative readership of all the new scholarly works in colonial history in a typical year.”45 The potential impact that a historical work can have is increased if historians are able to help living history sites to use it.
Living history sites can also offer unique approaches with compelling results.
For example the Old World Wisconsin site carried out extensive research before the site was constructed. The research revealed:
small variations in different groups’ material culture suggest large differences in attitudes and culture. The scholarship generated at Old World Wisconsin is consequently beginning to reshape historians’ understanding of rural life in the agrarian Midwest.46
44 Gordon, Time Travel, 175. 45 Warren Leon and Roy Rosenzweig “Introduction,” in History Museums in the United States: A Critical Assessment edited by Warren Leon and Roy Rosenzweig (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1989), xii. 46 Leon and Piatt, “Living History Museums,” 79.
22 Researching the Wisconsin site opened historians’ eyes to a new perspective on the area. This is an example of the opportunities offered to historians by living history sites, which can help to build connections between academics and the sites.
This was true for the following project, which required a different style of writing to be applicable for interpreters using the final project. It also meant going outside of information that would be typically included in a historical paper such as cattle nutrition. In this way, one has to think like a visitor not like an historian. This project also required more consultation and observation than a typical historical paper. It was important to ensure that the final product would address the needs of the site and include background knowledge necessary to serve interpreters.
Conclusion If living history sites respond to the critiques offered by academic historians, living history sites will stop being peaceable kingdoms and offer critical histories that will be relatable to visitor’s own stories. By providing complicated stories that relate to visitor’s own lives these sites have an opportunity to present current historiography and raise visitor satisfaction and financial security. Addressing these stories is an opportunity for museums to transform society positively. Living history sites can serve as an important meeting place between members of the public, curators, and academics and living history sites offer an opportunity for historians that has not been fully explored. The in depth research that follows is intended to allow interpretation of the mill to diversify and to provide new historical ideas to interpreters working in the mill. This type of partnership creates value for both museums and academics. As Lang Pioneer Village develops new
23 stories in accordance with critiques and updated historiography there is potential for growth.
TIMELINE
Dates Wider Context Dates Local Developments 1778 Government gristmill built at Fort Niagara 1795 Oliver Evans invented the automatic milling process 1823 Steam powered mills were introduced to Upper Canada 1815 – The British Corn Laws were in 1819 Richard Birdsall surveyed 1846 effect the property and designated space for a mill 1823 The land was granted to John Macaulay 1845 Thomas Short bought mill property 1846 Mill was Constructed 1854 Canadian-American Reciprocity Treaty or the Elgin-Marcy Treaty takes effect. (A trade agreement between the countries). 1861 - American Civil War 1863 Short had a lawsuit filed 1865 against him 1866- Fenian Raids – An Irish 1871 Republican group attempts to obtain Irish freedom by
24 attacking Canada. July 1 Canadian Confederation 1868 The mill property was 1867 (Ontario, Quebec, New foreclosed Brunswick, and Nova Scotia was created) 1870s Gradual Reduction Milling began in Minnesota 1874 Lewis Glover Buys the Mill 1876 Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone 1878 Canadian Temperance Act which allowed each county to decide whether or not they would be dry. Nov 16, Louis Riel was hanged for his 1885 The Mill passed from Glover 1885 role in the North West to E.J. Toker and James Rebellion Denniston 1893 Toker sold the mill to William Humphries 1896 Mill burnt in fire 1899 Humphries sold to Arthur Nelson 1904 Nelson sold to Lewis Squair Aug 4, The First World War began 1914 Nov 11, Armistice signed signalling the 1918 end of the First World War May 15, General Strike began in - June Winnipeg 1919 1925 Mary Clarkson inherited the mill Sept 10, Canada declared war on 1939 Germany May 7, Victory in Europe Day – The 1945 Second World War in Europe ended. 1956 Mill stopped producing flour remains open for feed grain 1964 Clarkson granted the land to The Otonabee Region Conservation Authority 1969 Clarkson stayed on as curator and caretaker until this year47
47 Appendix Fg: Sheiliagh Grant, ORCA, Lang Archives
25 1970 The property was leased to the County of Peterborough 1974 The mill was made a historic landmark and a plaque was unveiled (Placed near the road.) 1974 ORCA Member Lloyd B. Ash (a skilled miller) suggested restoring the mill for whole wheat, which would not have to meet as stringent controls as white flour48 1979 Mill became operational49
CANADA & ONTARIO CONTEXT
Milling was a significant part of the history of early Canada and an important part of the settlement of the province; they helped to gradually grow the province.
Merchant millers helped to create prosperity in the province and provide for the basic needs of small communities. Legislation and infrastructure helped to protect farmers and provide opportunities for millers to sell their grain. In the late 1800s changing markets, competition with new areas, and new technologies all contributed to the decline of small local mills and the growth of large centralised ones.
The first Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada Governor, John Graves
Simcoe, recognising the importance of mills in developing the economy and settlement, wanted to put sawmills and gristmills at every navigable river and lease them at public auction.50 Surveyors were instructed to note locations where mills
48 Appendix Fg: Sheiliagh Grant, ORCA, Lang Archives 49 Appendix Fg: Sheiliagh Grant, ORCA, Lang Archives 50 Sidney Thomson Fisher, The Merchant Millers of the Humber Valley: A study of the Early Economy of Canada (Toronto: NC Press Ltd, 1985), 25.
26 could be constructed.51 However, one of the biggest struggles with developing the mills was getting machinery and millstones to the various locations.52 The Queen’s
Rangers, under the direction of Simcoe, constructed some of the earliest public infrastructure. The Rangers built everything from roads to mills. Therefore the first water-powered mills were called the King’s mills and were owned by the Crown.53
The first settlement with a government gristmill in what is now Ontario was the fort at Niagara.54 The King’s mills were an important first step for milling in Upper
Canada but demand for milling far outstripped what these mills were able to do.55
The difficulties of surveying the land, waiting for King’s mills to be constructed, and the difficulty of creating passible roads that would allow farmers to deliver grain, all limited the growth of flour milling in early Upper Canada.
Milling began to grow with the development of merchant mills, which began to be established in the 1790s. Merchant mills produced flour for export as well as custom milling (for individual customers) at the same time.56 The very first session of the legislature of Upper Canada introduced a law regarding milling. The act, which took effect in January of 1793, charged 1/12 of the grain as a fee for milling.
A fine was set of 10 pounds (Quebec currency) for taking any more.57 This toll did not provide millers with enough grain to act as a merchant. Instead, millers had to develop enough capital in order to purchase grain. Historian Felicity Leung argues
51 Felicity Leung, Grist and Flour Mills in Ontario (Canada: Parks Canada National Historic Parks and Sites Branch, 1981), 12. 52 Fisher, The Merchant Millers, 26. 53 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 12. 54 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 12. 55 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 17. 56 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 24. 57 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 21.
27 that this was “often achieved by the proprietor setting up a store near the mill where settlers could trade their grain for the necessities of life. Merchant mill owners thus became traders, shippers, storekeepers, and innkeepers. Often their profits plus private capital enabled them to expand distilleries, piggeries, farms, and woollen mills.”58 The first Lang mill owner, Thomas Short, is an example of this concept. Short owned the Lang mill, and as a merchant miller he also owned a cooperage and even a boat for shipping the finished flour.
The importance of mills is also evident in land values in early Upper Canada.
Proximity to a local mill dramatically changed the value of a piece of property.
Roads, markets, and mills determined land prices Catherine Wilson provides an example from Northumberland County, Ontario:
Though he had cleared thirty acres on what was considered fair land and had improvements worth nearly 105 pounds, Porter was located on the sixth concession, six miles from the nearest mill. As a result, his land was valued by the government land agent at only fifteen shillings per acre in its unimproved state… In contrast Elisha Porter, whose improvements were similarly valued (at 110 pounds) got thirty-three shillings per acre for his lease, well above the township average. He lived only one mile from Colborne on property valued at over thirty-seven shillings per acre in its unimproved state.59
In other words, the construction of a mill itself could have a dramatic impact on the land value for surrounding land owners.
Proximity to a mill could also determine the successfulness and comfort of a settler. Travelling far distances with grain was difficult and time-consuming, which cut into the farmer’s profit. Transporting grain could consume half of a farmer’s
58 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 24. 59 Catharine Anne Wilson, Tenants in Time: Family Strategies, Land, and Liberalism in Upper Canada 1799-1871 (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009), 158-159.
28 profit.60 Writer Catharine Parr Traill who helped settle Peterborough County wrote about the impact on comfort, morale, and progress that she anticipated a local gristmill would have:
We hope soon to have a market for our grain nearer at hand than Peterborough; a grist mill has just been raised at the new village that is springing up. This will prove a great comfort to us; we have at present to fetch flour up at a great expense, through bad roads, and the loss of time to those that are obliged to send wheat to the town to be ground, is a serious evil; this will soon be remedied, to the joy of the whole neighbourhood. You do not know how important these improvements are, and what effect they have in raising the spirits of the emigrant, besides enhancing the value of his property in no trifling degree. We have already experienced the benefit of being near the saw-mill, as it not only enables us to build at a smaller expense, but enables us to exchange logs for sawn lumber.61
The mill also represented prosperity and progress.62 Milling indicated the conquering of the landscape by the pioneers and its transformation into the tamed landscape that they were accustomed to in Europe.
Milling greatly expanded across the province after 1825 and Upper Canada continued to experience growth in the milling industry over the following decades.
During the 1840s the pairs of millstones in what was then called Canada West rose by roughly 60 per cent.63 The 1840s saw an increase in wheat exports as well, which historian John McCallum attributes to Britain and Quebec increasing their
“demand for wheat without increasing its supply.”64 In addition high wheat prices
60 Robert Leslie Jones, History of Agriculture in Ontario 1613-1880 (Toronto: The University of Toronto Press, 1946), 81. 61 Catharine Parr Traill, The Backwoods of Canada (London: Charles Knight & Co, 1839), 291. 62 Catharine Parr Traill, The Backwoods of Canada, 257. 63 J. David Wood, Making Ontario: Agricultural Colonization and Landscape Re- creation before the Railway (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2000), 111. 64 First known as Upper Canada the modern day Province of Ontario was also called Canada West between 1841 and confederation in 1867.
29 in the United States meant that Canadian wheat was inexpensive enough to be shipped to the United States despite a tariff. By shipping through the States “the
Americans supplied a transport route that broke Montreal’s monopoly and reduced transportation costs to Britain and the Maritimes,”65 which also benefited the growth of milling in Canada West.
The decade also saw improved transportation. The St. Lawrence canals helped in shipping wheat more easily. Other infrastructure, including gravel roads and railways, helped Canadian products to be shipped more easily.66 The growth in both milling and transport created wealth and prosperity in Canada West. On the growth of Ontario, one historian comments that:
The region around Cobourg that is Toronto, and much of western Upper Canada were as prosperous as any of the newer parts of the United States not directly affected by the Erie Canal, and infinitely more prosperous than those parts of New York and New England where the farmers were suffering from the competition of cheap western produce.67
Ontario wheat was exported to various locations including large amounts to Britain
(Figure 1). The extent of wheat exports was made possible by improved transportation.
Milling in the 1840s was further aided by legislation. Canadian farmers experienced flourishing trade with Britain. The Corn Laws (1794-1846) protected
British farmers from competition, but growing demands in the 1820s led the British government to provide preference for colonial imports, which promoted a steady
John McCallum, Unequal Beginnings: Agriculture and Economic Development in Quebec and Ontario until 1870 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980), 18. 65 McCallum, Unequal Beginnings, 18. 66 Peter A. Russell, How Agriculture Made Canada: Farming in the Nineteenth Century (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2012), 105. 67Jones, History of Ontario, 81n.
30 grain supply for the nation.68 The Canadian Corn Act of 1843 allowed Canadian products like flour and lumber to enter Britain duty free.69 American farmers also benefited from this arrangement as their wheat could be imported to Canada and then ground at Canadian mills for shipment to Britain.70 The shipping of American grain to Canada benefited Canadian mill owners as they had an abundance of grain to grind into flour.
When the Corn Laws were repealed in 1846 as Britain moved towards free trade; this could have precipitated a decline in milling. However, the repeal of the
Corn Laws was offset somewhat by the Reciprocity Treaty between Canada and the
United States in 1854. This treaty allowed Canadian and American goods to move across the border without tarrifs. The 1850s continued to be prosperous for wheat farmers in Ontario. “Between 1850 and 1856 net exports of Ontario wheat almost doubled in volume and tripled in value.”71 Throughout the 1850s mills spread past towns and cities, throughout rural areas.72
Throughout the early 1860s wheat was the largest source of cash income for farmers. “Wheat and flour made up well over half of all exports from Ontario” during this time.73 In 1980, historian John McCallum wrote:
In terms of its contribution to cash income, wheat was more important to the Ontario farmer of the 1850s than to the Saskatchewan farmer of today; in the 1850s wheat made up about three-quarters of the cash sales of Ontario farmers.74
68 Historica Canada, Corn Laws, Home, Things, Law, http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/corn-laws/ 69 Carol Priamo, Mills of Canada (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1976), 20. 70 Priamo, Mills of Canada, 20. 71 McCallum, Unequal Beginnings, 18. 72 J. David Wood, Making Ontario, 142. 73 McCallum, Unequal Beginnings, 4. 74 McCallum, Unequal Beginnings, 24.
31
This illustrates the importance of wheat to farmers’ lives because it allowed them the cash to purchase things that they could not produce on the farm themselves such as sugar or nails. Oats and barley were also sold for cash. The cheapest grain was American Indian corn.75 Figure 2 illustrates the importance of various farm products at different stages in a farms development. Wheat figures prominently in each case.
The US Civil War (1861-1865) did not have dramatic impact on Canadian wheat price even though there was a large export of Canadian wheat in 1865.76
Prices disappointed some farmers because they did not reach the dramatic highs of the Crimean War period.77 This was in part due to the expansion of wheat farming in the west. Despite the steady price of wheat, American demand for oats was greatly increased. Oats became a significant cash crop for the farmers of Upper
Canada. In 1863-4 9,549,994 bushels of oats were exported to the United States.78
Canadian milling began to experience new struggles in the 1870s (Figure 3).
Demand for Canadian grain in the United States saw a large decline in the 1870s, in part due to the high quality flour being produced through a new patent process.79
Many mills converted to the new process from millstones to steel rollers including the mill at Lang. The process was called gradual reduction and got both the most flour and the whitest flour out of the grain. However, many mills went into decline
75 Jones, History of Agriculture, 244. 76 Jones, History of Agriculture, 217. 77 Jones, History of Agriculture, 216. 78 Jones, History of Agriculture, 217. 79 Jones, History of Agriculture, 245.
32 at this time because they could not compete with the new process.80 American millers could put their lowest grade products on the market because the new milling process allowed them to turn large profits on their highest quality of wheat. The huge volume that American millers sent to Canada meant that Canadian millers were undersold.81 Another reason for the decline was the competition the farmers of Upper Canada were experiencing with the developing American west. Production in the western states “increased phenomenally, owing to the heavy immigration to the prairies, the introduction of labour-saving machinery, and the demands of the
British market.”82 Small local mills struggled as steam power could be run in any season and often could produce more flour faster than a water-powered mill.83
Steam power allowed mills to be built in more convenient locations for shipping.
This impacted the cost efficiency with which smaller mills could ship their products.
Shipping continued to be a problem for anyone not located at a port or with competing railways. A Guelph miller and exporter wrote to Sir John A. Macdonald complaining about the freight rates:
The city is at the mercy of the Grand Truck Railway, our Millers are subjected to unjust unfair and ruinously high rates when compared to what American millers pay. Our importers and exporters have all the same grievances and the G.T. Rwy., in having the control, is not improving the trade in an otherwise energetic community.84
80 Priamo, Mills of Canada, 22. 81 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 161. 82 Jones, History of Agriculture, 216. 83 Priamo, Mills of Canada, 22. 84 James Goldie as cited in Leo Johnson “Ideology and Political Economy in Urban Growth: Guelph 1827-1927” in Shaping the Urban Landscape: Aspects of the Canadian City Building Process ed. Gilbert Stelter and Alan F.J. Artibise (Ottawa: Carlton University Press, 1982), 54.
33 The new process, opening of the American West, and steam power would impact the number of operating mills in Ontario. These changes contributed to a change in exports. From the 1870s to the 1890s Canadian exports changed from being primarily wood and grain to “more sophisticated forest products and … meat and dairy products.”85 (Figure 4).
Local mills experienced further decline due to the development of gas- powered vehicles. By the 1920s “tractors and trucks largely replaced horses.”86
This meant that farmers could grow wheat on a larger scale, as farming did not require as much manpower for sowing and threshing. By 1900 the time it took farmers to produce a bushel of wheat was “one-hundredth of the time required only
30 years earlier.”87 However the cost “compelled the farm to operate on a much larger scale to pay for [machinery] and the fuels needed for tractors and trucks.”88
The new scale of the farms allowed many farmers to buy gas powered machinery which could grind feed grain right on the farm saving time and expense. The labour- saving devices also impacted the social makeup of rural society. As less labour was needed on the farm children of farmers began seeking working in cities. This slowly changed the makeup of Ontario alarming many social commentators who believed associated rural life with “good moral values.”89
Although small local mills were in decline, the First and Second World Wars renewed exports of grain to Britain. The wars created a great need for wheat
85 Michael Hart, A Trading Nation: Canadian Trade Policy from Colonialism to Globalization (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2002), 66. 86 Russell, How Agriculture Made Canada, 242. 87 R Douglas Francis, Richard Jones, and Donald B. Smith Destinies: Canadian History Since Confederation 4 (Toronto: Harcourt Canada, 2000), 155. 88 Russell, How Agriculture Made Canada, 242. 89 Francis, Destinies, 156.
34 especially as other grain growing regions, such as Russia, were disrupted by the war.90 Miller Edward Bradfield saw Canadian wheat as dependable. His 1920 book states that from 1889 to 1899 Canada exported about 1,000,000 quarters of wheat in total by 1912 Canada had shipped 6,000,000 quarters of wheat to Britain alone.91
Bradfield states even more dramatic numbers for the second year of World War
Two Canada shipped 36,000,000 quarters of wheat and flour.92 These dramatic statistics illustrate the importance of Canadian wheat to the war effort. Bradfield continued to recommend that British millers purchase Canadian wheat after the war. The appeal of Canadian wheat was a grading system. The grading system introduced by the Canadian government allowed purchasers to know exactly what type of wheat they were purchasing.93
The long tradition of milling in Ontario continues today. Although the
Prairies are typically associated with Canadian wheat, Ontario farmers still produce wheat. The grain farmers of Ontario website lists seven active mills located in
Ontario with several in the Greater Toronto Area and others in Cambridge and
Blyth.94 Ontario annually exports about one million tons of wheat.95 Soil exhaustion is still a problem for farmers growing wheat. The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture,
Food and Rural Affairs offers farmers tips about minimizing the effects of soil
90 Editor James Ciment The Home Front Encyclopaedia: United States, Britain and Canada in World Wars I and II Volume 1 (Oxford: ABC-CLIO Inc., 2007) 297. 91 Edward Bradfield, Wheat and the Flour Mill: A Handbook for Practical Flour Millers (Liverpool: The Northern Publishing Company, 1920), 12. 92 Bradfield, Wheat and the Flour Mill, 12. 93 Bradfield, Wheat and the Flour Mill, 13. 94 Grain Farmers of Ontario, Market Development, Ontario Wheat Millers Accessed September 7, 2016 http://gfo.ca/Market-Development/Wheat-Export 95 Grain Farmers of Ontario, Market Development, Wheat Export, Accessed September 7, 2016 http://gfo.ca/Market-Development/Wheat-Export
35 exhaustion.96 Today Canadians not only have enough wheat to export but also to support countries that require foreign aid.97
96 Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Crop Talk, Wheat Nitrogen Strategies, Peter Johnson, 2013, Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/field/news/croptalk/2014/ct- 0314a1.htm 97 Historica Canada, Canadian Encyclopaedia, Home, Things, Foreign Aid, Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/foreign- aid/
36
Figure 1 - John McCallum, Unequal Beginnings: Agriculture and Economic Development in Quebec and Ontario until 1870 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980), 17.
37
Figure 2 - John David Wood, Making Ontario: Agricultural Colonization and Landscape Re-creation before the Railway (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2000) 88, 89
38
Figure 3 - John David Wood, Making Ontario: Agricultural Colonization and Landscape Re-creation before the Railway (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2000) 19.
39
Figure 4 - Michael Hart, A Trading Nation: Canadian Trade Policy from Colonialism to Globalization, (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2002) 66.
40 OTONABEE TOWNSHIP
Running through the Township of Otonabee is the Indian River on which the
Lang grist mill operates. The river’s indigenous name was Squak-no-goss-ippi (the
Sweet Water).98 The river was formed when glacial run off from Lake Algonquin flowed down to Lake Iroquois. The limestone ridges visible along the river today show that at one time the river was very swift and up to one mile wide and 80 feet deep.99
Settlers to Otonabee Township were granted land by the land agent, who was located first in Toronto and then moved to Cobourg. The settler would swear an oath of allegiance and was charged a small fee. The settler had to meet certain conditions in order to keep the land such as creating a road and a clearing on the lot.100 Richard Birdsall surveyed the land in Otonabee Township in 1819 and noted a good site for a mill in what would later become the Lang gristmill.101
In 1838, Dummer Township resident Thomas Choate frustrated by the inconsistent water levels on the Indian River gathered a group of 25-30 men and used dynamite to take out a ridge between White Lake and Stoney Lake (Figure
5).102 The decision to blast the ridge took place after the Upper Canada Rebellion.
As Choate was known to be a subscriber to rebel William Lyon Mackenzie’s paper he
98 Gayle Nelson, Forest to Farm: Early Days in Otonabee (Keene: Township of Otonabee-South Monaghan, 2000), 7. 99 Nelson, Forest to Farm, 7. 100 T.W. Poole, The Early Settlement of Peterborough County (Peterborough: Office of the Peterborough Review, 1867), 134. 101 Nelson, Forest to Farm, 110. 102 Jean Murray Cole, Origins: The History of Dummer Township, (Dummer: Township of Dummer, 1993), 73-74.
41 was brought before the court to explain the purchase of dynamite.103 The explosion produced the desired results and the Lang mill was part of a number of different mills set up as a result.104
Figure 5 - Jean Murray Cole, Origins: The History of Dummer Township (Dummer: Township of Dummer, 1993), 73.
Otonabee Township was slow to be settled as a result of the difficulty of reaching the township. Settlers paid small boat operators to bring them across Rice
Lake. The lake gained a reputation for being dangerous.
Rice Lake, which, by reason of its breadth and shallowness, was exceedingly dangerous whenever even a slight wind was blowing. Many fatal accidents and some narrow escapes are recorded as having occurred on this lake.105
The loss of life or destruction of luggage and supplies was a strong deterrent for many people.
103 Cole, Origins, 74. 104 Cole, Origins, 75. 105 Charles Pelham Mulvany, and Charles M. Ryan, History of the County of Peterborough Ontario (Toronto: C. Blackett Robinson, 1884), 383.
42 However, the township slowly began to improve. Captain Rubidge is credited with helping to lay out a road between Rice Lake and the Town of
Peterborough, which helped to improve travel and transport.106 Mills built in Keene and Peterborough in 1825-6 also helped to encourage settlement and make life easier for settlers.107 By 1853-4 a railway between Peterborough and Cobourg was built with a station in the township.108 The 1858 Directory advertised the railway station:
The village… is about three miles and a half from the line of the Cobourg & Peterborough Railroad, to the “Keene Station” to which carriages are sent by the Hotel-keeper for the mail and passengers.109
One writer to the Peterborough Examiner in 1861 described the Lang mill as “built on a fine level plain on both sides of the river: the homes are neither large nor lofty, but they are neat and clean and sufficiently commodious for their occupants.”110 An indication of the growth of the county is the lumber trade; in 1866 Peterborough
County was bustling with lumber trade with an export amount of $600,000.111
Lang was named after Squire William Lang who built the local carding mill.112
Lang was originally called the Village of Allandale or Allendale Mills but this caused postal confusion with another Village of Allandale just outside of Barrie.
Other Mills
106 Poole, The Early Settlement, 138 107 Poole, The Early Settlement, 143. 108 Poole, The Early Settlement, 143. 109 Directory of the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1858, Accessed at Peterborough Museum and Archives 110 Peterborough Examiner, March 14, 1861. Accessed at Trent Valley Archives. 111 Nelson, Forest to Farm, 114. 112 Nelson, Forest to Farm, 110.
43 Dianne Robnik in her book Mills of Peterborough County lists eleven other mills being located on the Indian River. The chart below (Figure 6) shows the various mills and their likely construction dates and illustrates the dramatic spread of mills and the variety of options for settlers as the area became more populated.
The number of mills on the river would have impacted the ability of mills to power themselves especially when water levels were low. The Lang mill was equipped with engines early on, likely when the oatmeal portion of the mill was added. In the case of water failure the engine would turn the turbine to ensure that grinding could continue.
Name Year Place Citation Page Number Dianne Robnik, The Mills of Peterborough County (Peterborough: Trent Valley Archives, 2006). Gilchrist 1826 Keene on Indian 107 River Hope 1835 North of Lang on 124 Indian River Choate 1836 Warsaw on Indian 65 River Carveth 1840 Warsaw on Indian 58 River Payne 1840 NE Warsaw on 170 Indian River Carveth 1850s Douro on Indian 58 River Wason/Wasson 1858 Warsaw on Indian 215 River Staples 1918 Indian River 204 Clement ? Warsaw on Indian 68 River Keene ? Keene on Indian 129 River Warsaw ? Warsaw on Indian 214 River Figure 6 – Mills on the Indian River. Dianne Robnik, The Mills of Peterborough County (Peterborough: Trent Valley Archives, 2006).
44
Activities Surrounding the Mill
The following table illustrates the scale and variety of industry that was at the Lang throughout the 1800s. Lang was not always a quiet village on the river but was a bustling center of industry and manufacturing. The table also illustrates the peripheral activities that could grow up around a mill to support mill activities. For instance, the mill required barrels, which supported a cooperage in the town.
Year Person / Information Occupation Citation 1858 T. & G. Atkin’s Coopers Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1858 (pg 31) Accessed at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives 1858 Parse Chase Cooper Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1858 (pg 31) Accessed at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives 1858 William Calden Tanner Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1858 (pg 31) Accessed at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives 1858 Peterborough Examiner January 5, 1858 pg 3.
1858 G. & R. English Cooper Directory for the United
45 Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1858 (pg 31) Accessed at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives 1858 Robert Sherar Carpenter Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1858 (pg 31) Accessed at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives 1858 Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1858 (pg 31) Accessed at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives
1858 Allandale Mills. Thos. Short, Proprietor. Situated in Village of Directory for the United Allandale. Contains a muley and circular saw, a shingle Counties of cutting machine, cutting from 40 to 60 a minute: a stave Peterborough and Victoria cutting machine, turning out 40 a minute: a circular saw for 1858 (pg 65) cutting lath: a planing and grooving machine. In the upper Accessed at the part of the building is a very convenient machine shop. The Peterboroug mill can cut 20,000 feet a day, and is driven by steam and h Museum and Archives water power. 1850s “Mrs. White who had a small house near Lang corner, made Gayle Nelson, Forest to straw hats from the wheat straw she got from neighbouring Farm: Early farms, and from all accounts these hats were of very excellent Days in Otonabee quality.” (Keene: Township of Otonabee- South Monaghan, 2000), 20. 1861 All the vast barrels to contain this vast quantity of flour and Peterborough Examiner oatmeal are made on the premises and the making of them is March 14, superintended by Mr. Thomas Atkins; this establishment 1861 pg 2. alone gives employment to 30 or 40 men, including clerks, millers, coopers, teamsters, labourers, etc. The machinery of this beautiful mill was put into operation by Mr. William West,
46 who is now employed as a superintendent and civil engineer of the establishment and whose [?] for this [?] office none dare to dispute he is emphatically the right man in the right place. … Directly south of these mills is a Foundry and Tannery; the precise quantity of leather manufactured I could not ascertain, but the business appears to be in a thriving condition. It is carried on by a Mr. Wm. Caler, who also carries on the saddler and harness business. In close proximity to the tannery stands the Foundry with all the requisite buildings, shops, etc., and machinery for carrying on a large business. This establishment is owned by Messrs. Moscrip & Co., whose threshing mills have been long and favourably known to the farming community; in short, Moscript’s threshing mills are superseding all others in this and surrounding country and monopolising the whole business. I was informed by a good judge of mills that nothing has come into market yet equal to the Moscrip pea and grain mills. This establishment turns out from 20 to 30 of these Mills annually, and his ploughs are held in high repute: a great number of these indispensible tillers of the soil are annually despatched from Moscrip’s foundry. 1865/6 Thomas Aitkins Cooper Directory for the United 6 Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1865-6 (pg 99) Accessed at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives 1865/6 George Connell Blacksmith Directory for the United 6 Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1865-6 (pg 99) Accessed at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives 1865/6 Jeffrey Dinsdale Mason Directory for the United 6 Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1865-6 (pg 99) Accessed at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives 1865/6 William Haster (sic Hastie) Waggon and Directory for the United 6 Sleigh Counties of Maker Peterborough and Victoria 1865-6 (pg 99) Accessed
47 at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives 1865/6 James C. Humphries Carpenter Directory for the United 6 and Counties of Machinist Peterborough and Victoria 1865-6 (pg 99) Accessed at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives 1865/6 Robert & James Shearer Carpenter Directory for the United 6 Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1865-6 (pg 99) Accessed at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1865-6 (pg 99) Accessed at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives
1870-1 James Calder Laborer Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1870-1 (pg 12) Accessed at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives 1870-1 Alex Connel Blacksmith Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1870-1 (pg 12) Accessed at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives 1870-1 Patrick Connor Laborer Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria
48 1870-1 (pg 12) Accessed at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives 1870-1 J. & Son Shearer Carpenters Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1870-1 (pg 12) Accessed at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives 1870-1 Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1870-1 (pg 12) Accessed at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives
1873 Saw Mill Peterborough Examiner Burns June 12, 1873 pg 2. Accessed Trent Valley Archives
“First Automatic Shingle Machine – Allandale mill (Thomas F.H. Dobbin “Old Nassau Short) was on the Indian river, near Keene, Ont., with steam Mill Was power as a reserve and had an output of 20,000 ft. per day. Challenger in Early Days” This mill introduced the first improved automatic machine for Peterborough cutting shingles which was capable of delivering from 40 to 60 Examiner August 9 shingles per minute. The steam engine in this mill was 1930, pg 11. brought out from Glasgow Scotland and being of the marine or walking-beam type, was later bought by Harry Clcutt and placed in the steam “Golden Eye” to ply on the waters of Otonabee river.” 1887 William Hastie Jr. Blacksmith Directory for the United Counties of
49 Peterborough and Victoria 1887 (pg A24) Accessed at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives 1887 James & Son Sheare Carpenter Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1887 (pg A24) Accessed at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives 1887 Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1887 (pg A24) Accessed at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives
1890 Charles Bell Grain Dealer Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1890 (pg 54) Accessed at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives 1890 J. & J. Dinsdale Builders Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1890 (pg 54) Accessed at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives 1890 Lewis Glover Grocer Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1890 (pg 54) Accessed at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives 1890 William Hastie Jr. Blacksmith Directory for
50 the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1890 (pg 54) Accessed at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives 1890 James Shearer & Son Carpenter Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1890 (pg 54) Accessed at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1890 (pg 54) Accessed at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives
1893 Charles Bell Grain Directory for the Counties Dealer of Haliburton, Peterboro, Simcoe, and Victoria 1893 (pg 45) Microfilm 1/5 Accessed at the Trent Valley Archives 1893 J & J Dinsdale Builders Directory for the Counties of Haliburton, Peterboro, Simcoe, and Victoria 1893 (pg 45) Microfilm 1/5 Accessed at the Trent Valley Archives
51 1893 Directory for the Counties of Haliburton, Peterboro, Simcoe, and Victoria 1893 (pg 45) Microfilm 1/5 Accessed at the Trent Valley Archives 1893 Directory for the Counties of Haliburton, Peterboro, Simcoe, and Victoria 1911 (pg 700) Accessed at the Trent Valley Archives 1897 David Hastie Carriage Directory for the United Maker Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1897-8 (pg A48) Accessed at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives 1897-8 Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1897-8 (pg A48) Accessed at the Peterboroug h Museum and Archives 1911 James Bowie Butcher Directory for the Counties of Haliburton, Peterboro, Simcoe, and Victoria 1911 (pg 700) Accessed at the Trent Valley Archives 1911 David Hastie Carriage Directory for the Counties Maker of Haliburton, Peterboro, Simcoe, and Victoria 1911 (pg 700) Accessed at
52 the Trent Valley Archives 1911 J.F. Pullyblank Blacksmith Directory for the Counties of Haliburton, Peterboro, Simcoe, and Victoria 1911 (pg 700) Accessed at the Trent Valley Archives 1911 William Weir Cheesemaker Directory for the Counties of Haliburton, Peterboro, Simcoe, and Victoria 1911 (pg 700) Accessed at the Trent Valley Archives 1900- Cheese factory was 1910 located on Herb Dawson’s Farm. Lang Archives, 04- 019
Figure 7 – Industries at Lang Developed by the author from the local directories.
Distilleries
Distilling alcohol was often an activity that surrounded gristmills because extra grain could be used for fermenting.113 Flour and alcohol were the two major uses for any extra grain or grain taken as payment for milling.114 Wheat middlings
113 Douglas McCalla, Planting the Province: The Economic History of Upper Canada 1784-1870, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 98. 114 Howard Morton Brown, Lanark Legacy: Nineteenth Century Glimpses of an Ontario County (Perth: General Store Publishing House, 1984), 203.
53 could be used to create whiskey, which gave millers another option for how to use lower quality grain before producing animal feed.115
In the early 1800s whiskey was the most popular form of alcohol.116
Whiskey cost these settlers about 12.5 cents per quart for most of the year.117
Thomas Short does not appear to have owned a distillery possibly due to the growth of the temperance movement, which banned drinking from the workplace by the
1840s.118 However, evidence suggests that the residents of the township had no problem with liquor. Keene contained “no less than four hotels or taverns.”119 In
1840 two distilleries were operating in the county.120 A motion around 1850 suggested limiting the township to three taverns “one to be in Peterboro East, one between Peterboro and the village of Keene, and one in the village of Keene.”121 This would have reduced the number of taverns in the township further evidence of temperance at work. But in 1861 Lang was observed to have “a small house where whisky alone is sold, in an out-of-the-way place.”122 Whiskey was also being advertised in the Peterborough newspaper (Figure 8). The continued existence of taverns and alcohol was true across Canada throughout the 1840s and 1850s to the chagrin of teetotallers.123 “Despite the rise of the temperance movement, provincial
115 Davin de Kergommeaux, Canadian Whisky: The Portable Expert (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2012), 19. 116 Douglas McCalla, Consumers in the Bush: Shopping in Rural Upper Canada (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2015), 72. 117 McCalla, Consumers in the Bush, 73. 118 Craig Heron, Booze: A Distilled History (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2003), 51. 119 Nelson, Forest to Farm, 20. 120 Nelson, Forest to Farm, 114. 121 Nelson, Forest to Farm, 9. 122 Peterborough Examiner March 14, 1861. Accessed at Trent Valley Archives. 123 Heron, Booze, 79.
54 output held steady in the 1850s and rose substantially in the 1860s.”124 There were
147 distilleries counted in the 1842 census, which was equal to one for every 2.8 gristmills.125
Figure 8 - Peterborough Examiner June 1 1860
124 McCalla, Planting the Province, 100. 125 McCalla, Planting the Province, 100.
55
LANG MILL SETUP
Constructing a Mill
Mills required a substantial investment to equip. For example, Douglas
McCalla explains that “a Port Hope mill built in 1844-5 with funds provided by the
Gilmour interest in Montreal required at least 750 pounds to equip the mill, but a vastly larger sum, 8,500 pounds, was employed to buy wheat for milling.”126
Sometimes these costs would be spread out over years as the mill began to produce and could pay for itself. The trick was finding someone to finance the operation.
Millwrights Qualified millwrights were in high demand in early Upper Canada.127 They needed to plan the dam, the building, and the set up of machinery, and an effective millwright would set up the mill to run in all seasons. It was necessary to have a competent millwright as mistakes would cost the mill owner money; therefore, they were very well paid. A surveyor in York wrote to friends in Britain stating that
126 McCalla, Planting the Province, 98. 127 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 92.
56 wages ranged from $1.50 to $2 per day with room and board.128 The Peterborough
Directory and an 1861 Peterborough Examiner article suggest that a man named
William West was the millwright for Lang.129
Milldams Milldams were an important part of generating the power to run the mill. An effective dam required an experienced millwright as each river and location presented a unique case.130 Millwrights had to take into consideration the depth, width, banks, current and seasonal water levels.131 In particular dams in Southern
Ontario tended to be “low and wide, backing up one or more hectares of water in the typically shallow valleys.”132
Walls The Lang mill was built with limestone from the area. The bedrock in the mill area is covered by a good layer of soil. However, limestone is exposed shortly up the river and could have been transported from there.133 Mills were typically built for height to provide the necessary gravity for the automated milling process.
The Lang mill is representative of the common height of mills. Most mills are limited to four and a half stories because larger buildings required steel framing.134
The buildings needed to be well built with solid frames and thick walls to withstand
128 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 94. 129 Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1858, Accessed at the Peterborough Museum and Archives, Peterborough Examiner March 14, 1861 pg 2. 130 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 51. 131 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 51. 132 Thomas McIlwraith, Looking for Old Ontario: Two Centuries of Landscape Changes, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), 207. 133 George Fischer and Mark Harris, Ontario’s Historic Mills, (Erin: Boston Mills Press, 2007), 52. 134 McIlwraith, Looking for Old Ontario, 210.
57 the vibration from the machinery.135 The ‘S’ shaped piece on the outside of the Lang
Mill supports the main beams inside (Figure 9). This solid construction also allowed large windows which allowed light (sometimes used for drying grain) and to permit airflow.136 It was important to make the first floor even with the road for easy access to load and unload grain.137 The floor is constructed out of pine, which is why the knots in the wood are particularly visible from wear on the floor. The metal piece on the oatmeal side of the mill is probably the main line shaft bearing housing that would have been connected to the steam engine (Figure 10).138
Figure 9 – Photo By Author (2016)
Figure 10 – Photo By Author (2016)
Grindstones
135 McIlwraith, Looking for Old Ontario, 211. 136 McIlwraith, Looking for Old Ontario, 211. 137 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 80. 138 Appendix Fg: Sheiliagh Grant, ORCA, Lang Archives
58 The Lang mill would have originally been run with grindstones. Millstones were used for a long time before automated rollers were introduced. Millstones needed to be hard for longevity, keep from crumbling, provide natural sharp edges and be uniform to wear evenly. Stones that meet these requirements include quartz, porphyry, granite, sandstone, and volcanic rock.139 The most popular stones used for milling were imported from France. In 1812, a quarry opened in Athens County,
Ohio which sources suggest had a similar makeup as the French stone.140
The best grindstones had pock-marks; these spaces allowed the grain to stay cool while being ground. This is important because scorched flour does not rise when baked. When the grain came out of the stone, it fell into a bin and then was spread out to cool.141 Despite the development of steel rollers French Burr
Millstones were still being sold in 1888.142
Millstones require frequent dressing of the grooves in the stone so it effectively ‘cut’ the grain. The pattern of the stone carries the grain to the outside of the stone (Figure 11). In order to dress the stone it would be lifted by a special hoist, and it could take two or three days to dress the stones; if the miller used the stones constantly, this process had to be done every two weeks.143 This could explain why many mills had more than one set of millstones so that the mill could be in constant operation even when the stones were being dressed. Lang was
139 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 38. 140 John Thornton Harrison, The History of the Quaker Oats Company, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1933), 139. 141 Bradfield, Wheat and the Flour Mill, 77. 142 Wm. and J.G. Greey, Illustrated Catalogue, (Toronto, 1888), 60. 143 John Storck and Walter Dorwin Teague, Flour for Man’s Bread: A History of Milling, (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1952), 105.
59 equipped with four sets of stones, typically one stone would be idle for dressing while the other three were producing.144
Figure 11 – Patterns carved on millstones by millwright John Storck and Walter Dorwin Teague, Flour for Man’s Bread: A History of Milling, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1952), 104.
Rollers The gradual reduction process (or sending grain through the mill multiple times) that was later introduced to the mill was much gentler on the wheat than millstones. The steel rollers also helped to keep the grain cooler than the traditional millstones. This helped the gluten in the flour to be maintained which when baked retains more air and can be baked into more bread.145
Yield
144 Nick Mika, Helma Mika and Larry Turner, Historic Mills of Ontario (Belleville: Mika Publishing Company, 1987) 46. 145 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 146.
60 The amount of flour that a mill could get from a bushel of wheat varied. The standard in 1830 was 4 ¾ bushels of wheat to one barrel of flour to regulate the quality of the flour. By 1889, government regulations put this number at 4 ¾ bushels to one barrel of flour.146 All millers tried to increase their yield whether by repeated grindings or adding middlings to their finest flour. However, yield could be impacted by the quality and cleanliness of the grain coming in.
Lang Details
The Lang mill was constructed in 1846 by Thomas Short. Limestone from the river and clay from the millpond were used to reinforce the pond banks.147
Limestone was also used to construct the walls of the mill.148 The machinery was likely put into motion by Mr. William West who continued to look after the mechanics of the mill.149 By 1858 the mill is described as “an excellent stone structure.”150 The mill contained “the modern appliances” and included “four run of stones and two bolts.”151
The Lang mill was relatively unique in that by 1858 it was equipped with a forty horsepower engine for low water levels.152 Even in 1871 steam engines were not common. Looking at urban industrial establishments, Douglas McCalla provides the following numbers: “Some 436 urban industrial establishments in 1870
146 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 108. 147 Nelson, Forest to Farm, 110. 148 Nelson, Forest to Farm, 161. 149 Peterborough Examiner March 14, 1861. Accessed Trent Valley Archives. 150 Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1858, Accessed at the Peterborough Museum and Archives, 67. 151 Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1858, Accessed at the Peterborough Museum and Archives, 67. 152 This engine was likely a walking-beam type. F.H. Dobbin “Old Nassau Mill Was Challenger in Early Days” Peterborough Examiner, August 9 1930 pg11.
61 reported using 25 or more horsepower: 49 per cent were steam powered, 45 per cent water-powered and 5 per cent used both water and steam.”153 These statistics illustrate the relative rarity of steam power during this time. Otonabee Region
Conservation Authority (ORCA) members who set up the mill to run estimated that the two turbines in the original mill would have produced about 50 horsepower.154
The 1858 Directory puts 6000 to 8000 barrels being exported from the mill.155 In 1861 one observer was impressed with the quantities of wheat that Short was purchasing. The writer put the number at 60,000 bushels in 1860 and cited that by March of 1861 Short had already purchased 30,000 bushels of oats, which would make about 3000 barrels of oatmeal.156
The current setup was arranged by a group of millers from Quaker Oats who were associated with ORCA. F.G. Ash was the chairman of the restoration committee and wrote that when the restoration began in 1965 all of the volunteers were still working at Quaker but as many retired they were “anxious” to finish the project.157
Furnishings
A report from A. Heideman to ORCA in 1982 detailed the progress of furnishing the Lang mill. The committee obtained two chairs, a sofa, which was
153 McCalla, Planting the Province, 234-5. 154 Appendix Fi: ORCA, Historic Sites Budget (1977), Lang Archives, 9. 155 Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1858, Accessed at the Peterborough Museum and Archives, 67. 156 Peterborough Examiner March 14, 1861. Accessed Trent Valley Archives. 157 Appendix Fa: F.G. Ash, “Lang Mill, Lang Ontario,” Lang Archives.
62 being repaired, a bar for a set of wall coat hooks, and a lamp. The desk set into the window is purported to be an original saved by Mr. McClure.158
Spittoons Spittoons were once a ubiquitous part of life. They were used in relation with chewing tobacco but also sometimes just for phlegm. Pieces of chewing tobacco are placed in the mouth and chewed to release the flavour and nicotine.
The extra juices are spit out into the spittoon. Although spittoons could be decorated or embellished based on social class it appears that they were used across class and even gender lines.159 Long time interpreter Frances Cardwell states that the flour dust in the air makes one’s mouth dry and that chewing tobacco was used to alleviate this.160
Oatmeal Mill
The oatmeal mill was an addition to the original building. However, it is unclear when it was added.161 One of the key differences between the flour portion of the Lang mill and the oatmeal portion is that oats have to be dried first. The oatmeal side would have had a stone wood-burning fireplace.162 The outer hull of the grain needs to be separated from the kernel. The oatmeal part of the mill would have had a floor of cast iron plates with funnel shape holes. A fire is lit beneath the iron plates and the heat and smoke comes up through the wide end of the funnel
158 Appendix Fb: A. Heideman, Progress Report: Acquisition of Furnishing for O.R.C. Project. Lang Archives, 1982. 159 Jane Perkins Claney, Rockingham Ware in American Culture, 1830-1930: Reading Historical Artifacts (London: University Press of New England, 2004),13. 160 Frances Cardwell, Run of the Mill, Film 29:52. 161 Appendix Fg: Sheiliagh Grant, ORCA, Lang Archives 162 Appendix Fg: Sheiliagh Grant, ORCA, Lang Archives
63 holes in the floor, which prevents the oats and dust from clogging the holes. The wood used in the kiln can impact the flavour and aroma of the oatmeal. Wood needs to be fed into the kiln for several hours before the oats can be added. The kiln is ready when water sprinkled on the floor hisses. The oats are spread over the kiln about 18 inches thick.163 After the 1876 fire destroyed the mill the oatmeal portion was not rebuilt the remaining walls were torn down in 1971 although the foundations are still visible.164
163 Appendix Fg: Sheiliagh Grant, ORCA, Lang Archives 164 Appendix Fh: Otonabee Region Conservation Authority, Frances Cardwell Personal Collection, Historic Sites Five-Year Plan (1980).
64
EARLY MILLS & GRINDING
The history of grinding is ancient. Before mills were developed grain needed to be ground by hand; the earliest mills were rocks that could be moved by hand back and forth to crush the grain. In Canada, early grinding done by Indigenous groups used a mortar and pestle style of grinder (Figure 12), this involved a tall heavy pestle that would be dropped into a hollowed log, which broke up the
65 grains.165 This type of grinder was for corn as the First Nations did not grow wheat.166
Figure 12 – Mortar and pestle style of grinder used by Canadian first John Storck and Walter Dorwin Teague, Flour for Man’s Bread: A History of Milling, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1952), 45.
Querns or rotary hand mills were a further development. These devices had a cranked handle. In this style “the upper stone is concave on its upper surface, thereby allowing the flour to fall automatically from the mill as it turns.”167 The diameters were fairly small in order to keep the querns portable and easier to operate. This style of mill:
fairly rapidly became a ubiquitous piece of domestic equipment, and continued to be used very widely throughout the Middle Ages across Europe and Asia. Its widespread popularity is hardly surprising considering that … one member of each household of eight to ten individuals would have had to have been engaged full-time in grinding grain. Unlike the later adaptation of the quern’s design to animal and water-power however, grinding with the aid of querns remained predominantly women’s work for many centuries.168
In other words, the amount of manpower necessary for creating flour was dramatically reduced by the invention of water powered mills.
165 Storck, Flour for Man’s Bread, 45. 166 Storck, Flour for Man’s Bread, 144. 167 Adam Lucas, Wind, Water, Work: Ancient and Medieval Milling Technology, (Boston: Brill, 2006), 19. 168 Lucas, Wind, Water, Work, 19.
66 Early references to automatic water mills appear in the writings of Roman engineer Vitruvius and Chinese engineer, Master Huan.169 However:
It is not until the first millennium of the common era that we find a growing body of evidence for the widespread use of a range of hydraulic technologies to process grain and other materials around the Mediterranean and in China.170
Despite the labour benefits, the adoption of waterwheels was not instantaneous.
The development of waterpower mills led to experimentation with different wheels, there are three common types. The overshot mill is one of the most effective because it is helped by gravity (Figure 13b). There is also an undershot mill where the wheel is immersed in flowing water (Figure 13a) and a breastshot mill based off of the overshot mill where water is directed onto the wheel (Figure 13c).171 These wheels would be located on the building exterior. A further type was the horizontal- wheeled water mill, which placed the paddles fully submerged or half submerged in the water and the force of the water directly turned the millstone.172 This type of wheel required “small quantities of water moving at high velocities”173 and was the predecessor to turbine in the Lang mill. The advantage the submerged turbine was that it was not impacted by freezing temperatures unlike exterior wheels.174
Figure 13 abc - Types of waterwheels Adam Lucas, Wind, Water, Work: Ancient and Medieval
169 Lucas, Wind Water, Work, 51. 170 Lucas, Wind Water, Work, 51. 171 Lucas, Wind Water, Work, 30. 172 Lucas, Wind Water, Work, 34. 173 Lucas, Wind Water, Work, 36. 174 Mika, Old Ontario Mills, 12.
67 Milling Technology, (Boston: Brill, 2006),31.
Automatic Flour Milling
Before 1785, men carried flour from floor to floor for each step of turning grain to flour. Inventor Oliver Evans used elevators and conveyors to eliminate the need for such labour.175 This process was called the Automatic Flour Mill. By the
1870s steam was becoming more common in the driving of mills, which helped to improve the efficiency of the mills.176 The next development created in the 1870s was the gradual reduction process. This process had the flour pass through rollers and sifters multiple times to develop the whitest flour possible and get the most useable product from the grain. Invented at a mill in Minneapolis, Minnesota this process caused a huge increase in the amount of flour milled there.177 This process was so effective that millers needed to adopt to the changing technology. Mills that failed to adopt closed sooner than ones that adopted the new technologies.178
The machines that grind the grain have changed very little since the development of the roller mill. Figures 14 and 15 show a cutting edge Los Angeles mill in 1952 and similarities between the Lang machinery can be observed. For example the wheels to adjust the rollers and the appearance of rollers in the scalpers. The most obvious difference is the increased size and scale of the operation.
175 Alban Lynch and Chester A. Rowland, The History of Grinding, (Littleton: Society for Mining Metallurgy and Exploration, 2005), 49. 176 Lynch, The History of Grinding, 4. 177 Lynch, The History of Grinding, 49. 178 Fischer, Ontario’s Historic Mills, 29.
68
Figure 14 - Roller floor of the Los Angeles mill. John Storck and Walter Dorwin Teague, Flour for Man’s Bread: A History of Milling (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1952), 320.
Figure 15 - Part of the purifier floor of the Los Angeles plant of General Mills. John Storck and Walter Dorwin Teague, Flour for Man’s Bread: A History of Milling (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1952), 320.
Dangers
69
Accidents Accidents were a common occurrence in mills. A law was introduced to
Upper Canada in 1838 to try and prevent accidents. This involved developing substantial guards to prevent accidental contact with the machinery. The penalty for not meeting these requirements was one pound or 30 days in jail.179 One example of the dangers surrounding the Lang mill is that of William Jamieson.
William was a young man who worked at the mill. His coat got caught in the main shaft. The coat held him to the surface of the shaft and broke his arm in two places.
The Peterborough Examiner writer was impressed that that was the only injury.180
Floods Floods were another problem that could occur. As pioneers settled the country and cleared trees the land could not hold as much water. This created larger fluxuations in rivers and streams.181 High water levels were capable of washing out the dams that ran the mills. In 1870, the water was raised to never before seen heights. The Peterborough Review contained extensive reports on the various water levels and destruction. The floods were blamed on the “immense snow falls of March and the omission of the usual January thaw.”182 One reporter put the losses this way, “Three Fenian raids would not cause as much loss, when crossways, bridges, roads, dams and property swept away are considered.”183
Damage at the Allandale Mill was not reported but another mill on the Indian River
179 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 137. 180 Peterborough Examiner March 17, 1870 pg 2. Accessed at Trent University. 181 McIlwraith, Looking for Old Ontario, 207. 182 Peterborough Review April 22, 1870 pg 2. Accessed at Trent University. 183 Peterborough Examiner April 21, 1870 pg 2. Accessed Trent University.
70 belonging to Mr. Payne had damage that would take seven or eight weeks to repair.184 By May 6th the paper was reporting the return of the river to normal.185
Fires The explosive and flammable nature of flour made fires very common in mills. A modern study undertaken by the National Association of British and Irish
Flour Millers found that flour is in the category of “the least explosible of dusts.”186
Even so, the associations’ first recommendation was that millers should avoid dust clouds.187 The tendency of mills towards fire encouraged many to purchase insurance. In fact part of the conditions for the 1874 mortgage from Robert
Standley to Lewis Glover on the Lang mill was insurance.188 An 1859 advertisement called for farmers to ensure their properties against fire (Figure 16). There was much written about how to make mills more fireproof. Stone mills were obviously less prone to fire than wooden ones. Moreover the wooden frames could be placed so that if they were on fire they would fall in rather than dragging the stone walls down.189 The fire that burned down the Lang mill in 1896 is an example of the dangers (Figure 17). Millers were careful to avoid metal pieces touching, which is why all of the belts are laced with leather rather than stapled. However, millers sometimes required extra light in the mill and would use lanterns, which was a
184 Peterborough Review April 29, 1870 pg 3. Accessed Trent University. 185 Peterborough Review May 6 1870 pg 3. Accessed Trent University. 186 NABIM, “The Explosibility of Flour, Gluten and Wheat Dust,” 2004 3. Accessed September 7, 2016 www.nabim.org.uk/download/.../193e634fc6fc2acf193cc7bb6011ea5d 187 NABIM, “The Explosibility of Flour, Gluten and Wheat Dust,” 2004, 9. Accessed September 7, 2016 www.nabim.org.uk/download/.../193e634fc6fc2acf193cc7bb6011ea5d 188 Instrument 1296 Microfilm 267A Accessed Land Records at Ministry of Natural Resources. 189 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 80.
71 risk.190 Fires still occur today despite the addition of modern equipment such as sprinkler systems. The following are examples of recent fires that illustrate that fires still occur today.
Figure 16 - Peterborough Examiner October, 20 1859 pg 1
Figure 17 –Original Mill Binder, Lang Archives.
190 Priamo, Mills of Canada, 103.
72
Recent Fires
2004 – The Tottenham Feed Service mill burned to the ground. The Tottenham fire department responded at 4:12 am and quickly called in the Beeton and Alliston stations to help fight the fire. The mill dated back to 1865 and about 300 tons of feed was destroyed. Ash and embers were spread several blocks from the fire191
2008 – The Hayhoe flourmill in Woodbridge caught fire and had several explosions perhaps due to a crew doing some welding early in the day or a later crew who was grinding wheat. Forty firemen fought the blaze and some nearby residents were evacuated.192
2013 – Lumber mill in Erin (just outside of Guelph) caught fire in the early morning. Firefighters arrived around 2:30am but the building was already engulfed in flames. Originally built as a gristmill in the 1830s the mill was used as a lumber mill since the 1890s. At the time of its destruction the mill was still working on waterpower with one floor converted to electricity.193
191 Huntsville Forester “Fire rips through historic mill” Aug 27. 2004. Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.muskokaregion.com/news-story/3597314-fire- rips-through-historic-mill/ 192 News Staff “Historic Flour Mill Gutted By Fire, Not Considered Suspicious” Jul 2. 2008 City News. Accessed September 7, 2016. http://www.citynews.ca/2008/07/02/historic-flour-mill-gutted-by-fire-not- considered-suspicious/ 193 Vik Kirsch, “Historic Erin mill destroyed in fire” Nov. 01, 2013 Guelph Mercury Tribune. Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.guelphmercury.com/news- story/4186640-historic-erin-mill-destroyed-in-fire/
73 2014 – It took firefighters a few hours to put out a fire at ADM Milling Co. in Midland. The sprinkler system helped to contain the fire, however a fire in the dust- collection system helped spread the fire to the roof. The explosive power of flour was important for the firefighters to recognise. The fire was fought by 24 Midland firefighters and six firefighters from Penetanguishene.194
2015 - A feed mill in Tavistock called Yantzi’s Feed and Seed Ltd. had a small explosion and fire. The explosion happened at 4:45pm and three men working at the mill were injured. Other employees were evacuated. A sprinkler system quickly extinguished the fire.195 OPP Const. Stacey Culbert said “Everything was contained within that one area.” The mill remained closed for an investigation on the Wednesday but remained open for business.196
2016 - Heritage mills particularly ones still running their original equipment can run into issues with modern safety standards. The 197-year-old flour mill in London Ontario run under the name Arva Flour Mill is experiencing some of these difficulties. The health and safety inspectors want guards to prevent millers’ hands from going near the rollers. However miller Mike Matthews argued that he needs to be able to feel the flour to check the process. The mill sells their flour to foodies both in store and online.197 In the mills long history there has never been an accident.
194 Travis Mealing “Fire Breaks out at Midland flour mill: Sprinkler system lessed risk of explosion, says chief” Midland Mirror Apr. 1 2014. Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.simcoe.com/news-story/4442556-fire-breaks-out-at-midland- flour-mill/ 195 Scott Miller Cressman, “Three hurt after explosion and fire at Tavistock feed mill. Dec. 16, 2015. New Hamburg Independent. Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.newhamburgindependent.ca/news-story/6197665-three-hurt-after- explosion-and-fire-at-tavistock-feed-mill/ 196 Megan Stacey “Three employees injured after an explosion and fire at a feed mill in Tavistock released from hospital.” Dec. 16, 2015 Woodstock Sentinel-Review Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.woodstocksentinelreview.com/2015/12/16/three-employees-injured- after-an-explosion-and-fire-at-a-feed-mill-in-tavistock-released-from-hospital 197 Debora Van Brenk, May 20 2016 Postmedia News National Post “Famous flour mill could close because the 197-year-old machinery doesn’t meet today’s safety codes. Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/news/blog.html?b=news.nationalpost.com/n ews/canada/famous-flour-mill-could-close-because-197-year-old-machinery- doesnt-meet-todays-safety-codes&pubdate=2016-05-21
74
MILLERS
Millers helped to provide economic opportunities and grow communities.
The mill was often the first building in a town and helped to develop the settlement and was a place where farm products could be exchanged for practical goods.198
There were many ways that millers could cheat their customers such as rigging their scales. There is not a lot of direct evidence for dishonest millers in Canada.
However, there is a famous British poem entitled “The Miller and His Sons” which reads as follows:
The miller he called his oldest son, Saying, ‘Now my glass it is almost run, If I to you the mill relate, What toll do you reign to take?’
The son replied: ‘My name is Jack And out of a bushel I’ll take a peck.’ ‘Go, go you fool!’ the old man cried, And called the next to his bedside.
198 Beatrice Craig, Backwoods Consumers and Homespun Capitalists: The Rise of a Market Culture in Eastern Canada, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 98.
75 The second said: ‘My name is Ralph, And out of a bushel I’ll take half.’ ‘Go you fool!’ the old man cried, And called the next to his bedside.
The youngest said: ‘My name is Paul, And out of a bushel I’ll take it all!’ ‘You are my son!’ the old man cried, And shut up his eyes and died in peace.199
The early legislation regulating milling fees that was put into place in Upper
Canada likely helped to prevent abuses like the one in this humorous poem.200 If a farmer suspected a miller of dishonesty, he had other mills where he could take his wheat. Farmers might also choose a different mill if they thought the quality of flour was low. The labour that had already been put into planting and cultivating the wheat meant that the farmer truly wanted flour of the quality of wheat that he brought in.201 Lang miller Lewis Glover advertised the mill with his honesty, “the subscriber trusts that from his long experience and from his manner of doing business to merit and receive a share of public patronage.”202 By 1927 the
Canadian government had introduced an act that mandated the inspection of all weights and measures in the mill. A number of different certifications granted to the
Clarkson’s are in the Lang Archives (Figure 18). The remnants of the seals proving that these inspections were done can also be seen on the main scale (Figure 19).
199 Carrie Harper, “The Miller and His Sons,” Modern Language Notes 28, no. 7 (1913): 215. 200 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 21. 201 Franklin F. Webb and Ricky L. Cox, The Water-Powered Mills of Floyd County, Virginia: Illustrated Histories, 1770-2010, (Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2012), 63. 202 Peterborough Examiner, January 16 1862, pg 3. Accessed Trent Valley Archives.
76
Figure 18 - Certificate 987.10.2bu Lang Archives
Figure 19- Close up Photo of Scale Photo by the Author (2016)
Beyond honesty a miller needed other personal characteristics in order to be successful. They required not only financial capital but also social capital.203 In her discussion of buying habits in early upper Canada Beatrice Craig writes “Custom millers relied on networks of family relationships and also a reputation for fair dealing.”204 Felicity Leung wrote a lofty description for the character of a miller saying he should maintain positive relationships with both farmers and mill owners as well as “gain a reputation for being gregarious, friendly, discreet, individuals whose skill, character and integrity won them an important place in the
203 Craig, Backwoods Consumers, 111. 204 Craig, Backwoods Consumers, 111.
77 community.”205 It was important for the millers to have social skills because mills served as a gathering place, particularly for the men of a community.206 The mill was a place where the most recent gossip could be shared. The mill provided a place for social gatherings such as swimming in the millpond or skating on it in the winter.207 The amount of people that millers knew is illustrated by an anecdote about John Clarkson the last miller at Lang. A visitor to the mill mentioned his grandfather and Clarkson recalled the man and even commented that he was not good with horses.208
Millers also needed to be industrious. There were times of the year where the mill ran constantly and the miller had to always be on call to ensure things were running smoothly. This resulted in many millers living nearby.209 Millers definitely worked hard. One 1891 record from Chatham, Ontario has the millers assistant working a 60-hour week.210 The miller had to ensure that no pests such as insects or rats ruined the flour. A good miller was constantly sweeping to prevent pests.211
They had to watch for bats and birds, which might jam the machinery. They also had to carefully maintain their equipment.212 An idle man would not be a successful miller. Through their experience millers also developed a feel for the mill and the
205 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 98. 206 Webb, The Water-Powered Mills of Floyd County, 43. 207 Webb, The Water-Powered Mills of Floyd County, 46. 208 Appendix Ed: Nick Nickels, Indian River Mills, (Lakefield: Paddle Press, 1975), 14. 209 Mika, Old Ontario Mills, 15. 210 Victor Lauriston, A Century of Milling: The Story of The T.H. Taylor Company Limited 1848-1948, (Chatham), 19. 211 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 29. 212 Priamo, Mills of Canada, 103.
78 flour. By touching the flour at various stages a good miller would know how to adjust the various machinery.213
Early mills required two or more people to keep them running smoothly.
Mill owners needed to manage the mill paperwork and, unless they hired a clerk to do so, they needed someone to run the mill while they attended to business.214 The automated mills developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries made it easier for a single miller to run the mill.215 This is what happened at Lang: early owners hired millers to run the mill while later owners were also the millers.
It appears that millers were paid various wages based on their experience and their position in the mill (head miller, second miller, etc). Between 1846 and
1850 Jacob Keefer a mill owner in Welland paid his head miller $45 a month, his second miller $30 per month for the year or $35 while there was business.216 That mill also hired a flour packer who was paid 2 ¼ cents per barrel.217 However
William Wadsworth who owned a mill north of York (Toronto) only paid his head miller $24 a month.218
Women also played a role in the mill assisting their husbands or fathers to ensure that the mill ran smoothly. John Duncan’s wife helped him by making repairs to the silk screens that sifted the flour.219 Long time interpreter Frances Cardwell recalled putting new silk on a frame and expressed that mending and refitting the
213 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 29. 214 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 97. 215 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 97. 216 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 99. 217 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 99. 218 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 100. 219 Appendix Ea: Daisy (Duncan) Fowler, Interview with George Cobb, September 30, 1965, Lang Archives
79 silk is difficult.220 There is little other current research about women’s roles in milling.
Farmers & Wheat Growing
Most early farmers in Upper Canada grew large amounts of wheat. Farmers used the soil very aggressively; they would plant wheat and then have a fallow year followed by wheat again.221 The lack of feed crops and manure meant the soil became exhausted very quickly. Settlers used the land in this way because land was abundant and they did not have sufficient capital to develop it in a more productive way.222 This system of growing also allowed the farmer to grow a product before stumps had been cleared.223 Wheat was also a major cash crop. The system of wheat-fallow-wheat produced a “as high an income per cleared acre as could be obtained from any type of agriculture before the middle of the nineteenth century.”224 The importance of wheat to farmers can be seen in in Figure 2, which ranks the importance of various crops at a slightly earlier time period than the Lang mill. Figure 20 indicates the seasonal farm activity related to grain and milling.
220 Frances Cardwell Interview, with Victoria Veenstra July 11, 2016
221 Fallow refers to leaving the land unsown and unplowed for a season in order for the ground to restore some of its fertility. Kenneth Kelly, “Wheat Farming in Simcoe County in Mid-Nineteenth Century,” The Canadian Geographer, 15 no. 2 (1971): 95. 222 Kelly, “Wheat Farming,” 95. 223 Kelly, “Wheat Farming,” 107. 224 Kelly, “Wheat Farming,” 107.
80 Farmers had several steps to complete before they could actually bring their grain to market. First grain had to be harvested or taken from the fields. Grain was harvested by reaping or cutting the grain with a scythe or sickle (a curved blade with a long handle). The grain then needed to be threshed (Figure 21). This step removed the chaff or the dry husk that surrounds the grain. The grain then had to be winnowed which removed the chaff from the good grain (Figure 22). This could be done by throwing up the grain and allowing the kernels to fall back down while the chaff is picked up by the wind. However, this process was made much simpler by the development of fanning mills, which separated the chaff from the grain and removed it from the grain.
81
Figure 20 - John David Wood, Making Ontario: Agricultural Colonization and Landscape Re-creation before the Railway (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2000), 90.
82
Figure 21 - Felicity Leung, Grist and Flour Mills in Ontario (Canada: Parks Canada National Historic Parks and Sites Branch, 1981), 35. Figure 22 - Felicity Leung, Grist and Flour Mills in Ontario (Canada: Parks Canada National Historic Parks and Sites Branch, 1981), 36.
Wheat prices were affected by how far the grain or mill was from a port.
Some farmers who wanted the extra earnings would drive their wheat long distances. For example:
Wheat was worth 6d. (York Currency) more a bushel at Chatham, for example, than at London because from the latter point there was a land carriage of twenty-five miles. As a result of this condition it was usual for farmers to draw their loads of forty bushels or so of wheat from Meaford on Georgian Bay to Toronto a distance of well over a hundred miles.225
The conditions of the roads during the summertime sometimes meant that farmers waited to bring in their grain until winter.226 Some farmers used the winter season in order to have time set aside to process their grain. One early pioneer recalled
225 Jones, History of Agriculture, 106-107. 226 Jones, History of Agriculture, 107.
83 threshing the grain by hand and the long commute paddling wheat to a far off mill.227 In any case transportation was a significant part of turning grain into cash.
Farmers also had to contend with poor weather conditions as well as various pests and blights. Some pests were particularly bothersome. For instance rust is a fungal infection that hits the leaves of the plant. Farmers in 1858 experienced trouble with the wheat midge.228 The wheat midge is a small bug that eats the wheat kernels as they develop. The larva of the Hessian fly feed on the sap of wheat plant so that it is too weak to grow grain, yet another pest farmers had to contend with. Farmers dealt with this by using different varieties of wheat including Red
Fife but also by planting fall wheat later. Ontario farmers had to contend with many different issues that would prevent them from bringing their wheat to the mill.
Local farmers recorded various things about growing wheat and occasionally mentioned the mill. In September 1898, John McFarlane wrote an entry in his journal noting that “Pa is out of humour because he can’t get at the wheat.”229
Farmer John Craham Weir spent the “forenoon” of July 11, 1893 grinding wheat for pigs and barley and oats for the horses.230 Another local farmer David Nelson wrote a daybook describing each day in a few words. Nelson gradually made improvements to his farm. One tools was a fanning mill, which would have helped him to provide cleaner grain to the miller eliminating some of the weight loss that
227 Canniff Haight, Country Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago: Personal Recollections Reminiscences of a Sexagenarian, (Toronto: Hunter, Rose & Co., 1885), 31, 225. 228 G. Elmore Reaman, A History of Agriculture in Ontario Vol 2. (Toronto: Saunders, 1970), 69. 229 Nelson, Forest to Farm, 313. 230 Keene Sentinel, “Weir Journals,” July 11, 2016.
84 would have occurred in the initial cleaning.231 The following are a few pertinent entries from 1870:
January 25 – James drew his wheat to Allandale May 13 – David Dunn died at Allandale May 29 – Started to cut the hay August 17 – Finished the Harvest September 1 – Sowed the Wheat232 April 18 – Very high water April 19 – Nearly all the Bridges on the Allandale river washed away April 24 – Water Still rising April 25 – Allandale mill dam washed away May 7 – Water is falling233 July 18 – Started to cut the fall wheat and it is useless with rust.234
Cows & Wheat
Today, because of cost, most farmers feed their cows corn and barley.
However, wheat is equivalent in nutrition to corn for cows and is used by farmers.
It is often only the by-products of milling that are used for animal feed. This is because the highest quality of wheat is worth the most (so it is too expensive to feed to cows) and is used for human consumption. Feeding wheat to cows requires animals to be adapted to it otherwise it can cause indigestion. If cows have not had wheat in their diet the gluten in the wheat can turn to paste in the cows’ rumen
(digestive organ at the start of cows digestive tract) and keep the rumen from
231 G.P. deT. Glazebrook, Life in Ontario: A Social History, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968), 171. 232 David Nelson, Day Book Transcript, Accessed Otonabee-South Monaghan Historical Society. 233 Nelson, Forest to Farm, 307. 234 Nelson, Forest to Farm, 309.
85 pushing the food through to the next part of the digestive tract.235 Cows can eat unprocessed grain but breaking down the grain allows the cow to digest more of the nutrients.236 Processed (or milled) grain increases its digestibility by 20-25%.237
However, fine ground wheat is not good for cows’ digestion, cows should not be fed flour.238 Cows cannot be fed only wheat; the maximum portion of wheat in a cows diet is 40-50%.239
235 Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Livestock, Beef, Basic Beef Cattle Nutrition, Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/livestock/beef/facts/91-066.htm 236 Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Livestock, Beef, Wheat for Animal Feed Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/livestock/beef/facts/wheat.htm 237 Manitoba, Agriculture, Livestock, Production, Wheat: Feeding Wheat to Cattle, Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/livestock/production/beef/print,wheat- feeding-wheat-to-cattle-.html 238Manitoba, Agriculture, Livestock, Production, Wheat: Feeding Wheat to Cattle Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/livestock/production/beef/print,wheat- feeding-wheat-to-cattle-.html 239 Manitoba, Agriculture, Livestock, Production, Wheat: Feeding Wheat to Cattle Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/livestock/production/beef/print,wheat- feeding-wheat-to-cattle-.html
86 MILL OWNERS
This chart shows the various owners of the Lang (Allendale) mill. Blue
indicates when the land changed hands. The land concerned addresses Lot 18
Concession 6 the West 1/2. The mill was not given a lot number in the plan of
Allendale as seen on Plan 11 of the Village of Allendale (Appendix B). Further
details and explanations can be found in the extended version of this chart found in
the Appendix Aa.
Not only does this chart show the various owners, it also indicates the state
of their finances. One can see the huge mortgage that Thomas Short put on the mill
property from a variety of lenders.
Year Instrument Transaction From To Price Citation 1823 Land Grant Crown John Free Otonabee Abstract Index Macaulay 165 (Pg. 222) Accessed Trent Valley Archives 1845 1201 and Sale John Thomas 210 Otonabee Abstract Index 1202 Macaulay Short Pounds 165 (Pg. 222) Relative Accessed Trent Valley Archives Value 22,090 Pounds240 1846 Mill Is Constructed (Date on Cornerstone) 1852 5733 Mortgage Martha T. Thomas 1000 Otonabee Abstract Index Orr and Short Pounds 165 (Pg. 222) James Barr Relative Accessed Trent Valley Archives Value 97,000 Pounds241 1856 10724 Mortgage Robert Thomas 2100 Otonabee Abstract Index Standley Short Pounds 165 (Pg. 222)
240 This number was created for 2014 by the website Accessed September 7, 2016 https://www.measuringworth.com 241 This number was created for 2014 by the website Accessed September 7, 2016 https://www.measuringworth.com
87 Year Instrument Transaction From To Price Citation Relative Accessed Trent Valley Archives Value 175,000 Pounds242 1857 12211 Declarations Robert Thomas Otonabee Abstract Index Standley Short 165 (Pg. 222) Accessed Trent Valley Archives 1861 14888 Mortgage Robert Thomas 3000 Otonabee Abstract Index Standley Short Pounds 165 (Pg. 222) Relative Accessed Trent Valley Archives Value 250,000 Pounds243 9 October 15688 Mortgage George Thomas Various Otonabee Abstract Index 1862 Kempt Short 165 (Pg. 222) Accessed Trent Valley Archives January 15774 and Lis Pendens Robert Thomas Otonabee Abstract Index 1863 15922 (Law Suit) Standley Short 165 (Pg. 222) Accessed Trent Valley Archives November Registered Court Robert 987.10.2k Accessed at 1866 20358 Documents Standley Lang Pioneer and Others Village Archives 1868 132 Foreclosure Robert Thomas Otonabee Abstract Index (Instrument Standley Short 165 (Pg. 222) not in Accessed Trent Valley Archives Microfiche) 1874 1295 Sale Robert Lewis $7000 Otonabee Abstract Index Standley Glover Relative 165 (Pg. 222) Value Accessed Trent Valley Archives $145, 833244 1874 1296 Mortgage Robert Lewis $5250 Otonabee Abstract Index Standley Glover Relative 165 (Pg. 222) Value Accessed Trent Valley Archives
242 This number was created for 2014 by the website Accessed September 7, 2016 https://www.measuringworth.com 243 This number was created for 2014 by the website Accessed September 7, 2016 https://www.measuringworth.com 244 This number was created for 2015 by the website, which uses data from Oregon State University and so may be slightly off for Canadian values. Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.davemanuel.com/inflation-calculator.php
88 Year Instrument Transaction From To Price Citation $109,375 245 1877 1809 Mortgage Edward J. Lewis $2800 Otonabee Abstract Index Toker Glover Relative 165 (Pg. 223) Value Accessed Trent Valley Archives $63,636 246 1879 2220 and Mortgage William Lewis $1468 Otonabee Abstract Index 5220 Glover Glover Relative 165 (Pg. 223) Value Accessed Trent Valley Archives $34,952 247 1885 3713 Role of Lewis E.J. Toker $1 Otonabee Abstract Index Equity Glover and James 165 (Pg. 223) Dennistow Accessed Trent Valley Archives n 1893 5006 Sale E.J. Toker William J. $3000 Otonabee Abstract Index Humphries Relative 165 (Pg. 223) Value Accessed Trent Valley Archives $78,947 248 1896 Mill Burns in Fire (Oatmeal portion is not rebuilt) 1899 5946 Grant William J. Arthur $4875 Otonabee Abstract Index Humphries Nelson Relative 165 (Pg. 223) Value Accessed Trent Valley Archives $139,285 249 Sep 1904 6763 Grant Arthur Lewis J. $4500 Otonabee Abstract Index Nelson Squair Relative 165 (Pg. 223) Accessed Trent
245 This number was created for 2015 by the website, which uses data from Oregon State University and so may be slightly off for Canadian values. Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.davemanuel.com/inflation-calculator.php 246 This number was created for 2015 by the website, which uses data from Oregon State University and so may be slightly off for Canadian values. Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.davemanuel.com/inflation-calculator.php 247 This number was created for 2015 by the website, which uses data from Oregon State University and so may be slightly off for Canadian values. Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.davemanuel.com/inflation-calculator.php 248 This number was created for 2015 by the website, which uses data from Oregon State University and so may be slightly off for Canadian values. Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.davemanuel.com/inflation-calculator.php 249 This number was created for 2015 by the website, which uses data from Oregon State University and so may be slightly off for Canadian values. Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.davemanuel.com/inflation-calculator.php
89 Year Instrument Transaction From To Price Citation Value Valley Archives $121,621 250 May 1918 4R 3978 Proof of Will Lewis J. William E. Otonabee Abstract Index (Instrument Squair Lech and E53 (Pg. 3) Not in Vincent A. Accessed Microfilm Land Microfiche) Barnett Records Executors Ministry of Natural Resources April 1925 10297 Grant William E. Mary E. $4,250 Otonabee Abstract Index Lech and Clarkson (Tax E53 (Pg. 3) Vincent A. Affidavit Accessed Microfilm Land Barnett $2125) Records Executors Relative Ministry of Value Natural of Lewis Resources $59,084251 Squair (dec) 1964 140071 Grant Mary The Otonabee $4000 Otonabee Region Abstract Index Clarkson Relative E53 (Pg. 4) Conservation Value Accessed Authority Microfilm Land $31,386 Records 252 Ministry of Natural Resources 1965 147627 Grant Mary The Otonabee $1 Otonabee Region Abstract Index Clarkson E53 (Pg. 4) Conservation Accessed Authority Microfilm Land Records Ministry of Natural Resources 1970 209765 Lease The Otonabee The Otonabee Region Corporation Abstract Index E53 (Pg. 4) Conservation of the County Accessed Authority of Microfilm Land Peterborough Records Ministry of Natural Resources 1974 The Mill Plaque is Unveiled – “The plaque will be unveiled jointly by Ontario Heritage Trust, Mr. William Short, a descendant of Richard Short, a brother of Coordinator Plaque
250 This number was created for 2015 by the website, which uses data from Oregon State University and so may be slightly off for Canadian values. Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.davemanuel.com/inflation-calculator.php 251 This number was created for 2016 by the website Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/inflation-calculator/ 252 This number was created for 2016 by the website Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/inflation-calculator/
90 Year Instrument Transaction From To Price Citation Thomas Short who built the mill in 1846, and by Mr. Ralph Program, Historical Humphries, a member of the family who rebuilt the mill following Backgrounds, the fire of 1896.” Lang Mill.
Thomas Short’s Foreclosure
The above chart shows the fortunes of all of the mill owners. However the
story of Thomas Short is particularly interesting due to his substantial holdings and
high standing in the community. The chart clearly shows Short’s financial
difficulties and ultimate bankruptcy. The first mortgage he took out on the mill
occurred in 1852, six years the mill was constructed. In the next decade Short
mortgaged the mill property for at least 6100 pounds. Short owned other local
properties and could have had even more debt. Eventually a lawsuit was filed
against Short and he lost the mill.
Several theories have been proposed for the bankruptcy. Margaret Gunn
(who lived with Richard Short (Thomas Short’s son)) wrote a piece before her death
putting the cause of the bankruptcy with dishonest managers who had taken
advantage of Short while he was away on government affairs.253 Although this
theory hold possible merit regarding Short’s other holdings, the mill was run by his
brother who continued to run it after Short left the village, which suggests that he
was an honest manager.
Broader economic and legislative conditions may have also prevented Short
from reaching his projected profits. For example the American Civil War failed to
reach the high wheat prices of the Crimean War. Short may also have attempted to
253 Appendix Ec: Janet Gunn, Short Family History (Otonabee South-Monaghan Historical Society)11.
91 make extra earnings by developing an oatmeal mill. The repeal of the Corn Laws may have have also cut into Short’s profits. Most of the impact of this repeal should have been absorbed by the Elgin-Marcy treaty which promoted trade between
Canada and the US. However, these broader economic factors combined with other local conditions may have contributed to Short’s bankruptcy.
A retrospective written in 1931 in the Peterborough Examiner contributed the blame for Short’s downfall to Short being:
perhaps a man born long before his time. Probably the location of his work with all its difficulties of transportation, was its essential weakness, foredooming his labour and multiple businesses to bankruptcy. If he had reached early manhood when electricity was transforming and broadening the methods and limits of manufacturing he might have become a great industrialist.254
This idea has some merit as many decades later the Quaker Oats Company would be located in nearby Peterborough admittedly on a different river:
Peterborough was chosen because of its strategic location. It is in the line of flow of grain from the American West and the Canadian Northwest. Its close proximity to Montreal gives rapid contact with rive and ocean highways, and it is this fact which had led the company recently to make Peterborough the chief source of its export trade. The Canadian city now has replaced Akron as the center of the ‘Quaker’s’ world-wide activity, and has claimed the distinction of possessing the largest cereal mill within the British Empire.255
This illustrates that Short chose his location well in order to establish a long-term business. Despite long term potentials the difficulties of getting flour to market and
Short’s vision may have caused him to expand too broadly for what the county could support.
254 Peterborough Examiner, August 29, 1931. 255 John Thornton, The History of the Quaker Oats Company (Chicago: The Univeristy of Chicago Press, 1933), 211.
92 Short’s expansive vision may have also been too big for the state of his finances. The same 1931 article also suggested that:
Some persons would say that he was bound to fall with so many ‘irons in the fire.’ Perhaps the men of his day around Keene and Lang doubted the soundness of expansion. On the other hand he may have been regarded as a phenomenon in that time of rampant individualism. … It is related that borrowed capital caused his downfall. Some one whispered that Short was in difficulties. First one, and then another, demanded the return of money that had been loaned him. And when the credit under structure of his industrial edifice was weakened the additional fund with which he had extended his investments, the whole building toppled and presently collapsed.256
An example of this happening to an entrepreneurial family is that of the James S.
Fowlds and Brothers who developed a set of businesses in nearby Hastings. They had a gristmill, a sawmill, a retail store, and a steamboat. They dealt with several banks particularly the Bank of Montreal.257 A fire in several mills in 1863 and a fire at their store in 1864 precipitated their bankruptcy in 1865. Douglas McCalla blamed the bankruptcy on the “scope of this business – and its extensive reliance on credit.”258 The Fowld’s story ended well as they compromised with their creditors in order to continue the businesses. However, some similar tipping point could have occurred with Short. The importance of credit for early Canadian businesses cannot be understated. “The major challenge was obtaining sufficient capital: the buying and selling of wheat and lumber depended on predicting markets up to a year or more into the future, and bankruptcy and failure were inevitable without
256 Peterborough Examiner, August 29, 1931. 257 Douglas McCalla, Consumers in the Bush: Shopping in Rural Upper Canada (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2015), 32. 258 McCalla, Consumers in the Bush, 32.
93 dependable credit relationships based on trust.”259 Historian Catherine Wilson points out the difficulties of credit for farmers. Not only did a farmer have to pay for the land but also “an additional one hundred pounds” to set up a functioning farm.260 Renting was appealing because it was less expensive and easier to obtain.
In addition, unless one could buy property outright buying land in instalments could be risky.261 “The failure of the Commercial Bank, which was followed by a run on other banks, completely paralysed the Ontario grain trade for about a month in the autumn of 1867.”262
In conclusion, there is a lot of speculation about the precise nature of Short’s downfall. Dishonest management, economic and legislative conditions, financial overextension or simply being too far ahead of his time, singularly or in combination may have been the reason for the foreclosure on the mill property.
259 Andrew Ross and Andrew D Smith “Introduction” in Canada’s Entrepreneurs: From the Fur Trade to the 1929 Stock Market Crash, ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011), xxii. 260 Catherine Anne Wilson, Tenants in Time: Family Strategies, Land and Liberalism in Upper Canada 1799-1871 (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 2009), 56. 261 Wilson, Tenants in Time, 57. 262 Robert Leslie Jones, History of Agriculture in Ontario 1613-1880 (Toronto: The University of Toronto Press, 1946), 237.
94
MILL OWNER BIOGRAPHIES
Mill owner biographies are arranged in the chronological order of their ownership. Any additional resources such as newspaper articles or archival resources about the individual are in a chart at the end of the entry.
John Macaulay
John Macaulay was married to Helen.263 Macaulay was the original owner of the Lot 18 on the 6th Concession of Otonabee. When he sold the property to Thomas
Short, Macaulay is listed as living in the city of Kingston in the County of Frontenac in the Province of Canada.264
Thomas Short
263 Instrument 1201, Microfilm 345A, Accessed Land Records at Ministry of Natural Resources 264 Instrument 1202, Microfilm 345A, Accessed Land Records at Ministry of Natural Resources
95 William Allan Gunn 1894-1914
Richard Short Ann Elizabeth 1804-1880 David Frederick Short Born 1842 Gunn 1896-1914 William Thomas Gunn 1867-1930 Isabel Hope Margaret 1814-1901 David Gunn Caroline Gunn 1901-1903 Margaret Gunn Died 1934 Thomas Short Mary Short Janet Elizabeth 1847-1872 Gunn Born 1908
Margaret Carr Thomas C. Short 1817-1875 William Diest 1849-1880 Born 1907
Richard Short Maria Middleton Andrew Short 1768-1832 1833-1926 Born 1852
Richard A. Short Mary Carr Andrew Short 1854-1902 1773-1838
John Short
Margaret Short
Isabella Short Dr. Charles T. Sibley
Ann Elizabeth Short
E. Merritt Post
Figure 23 – Thomas Short Family Tree Created By Author
Thomas Short (1816-1887) immigrated with his parents to Canada at a
young age. In 1840 he married Margaret Carr (1817-1875):265
He had five children, most of whom would die at an early age. Thomas Short married secondly Maria Middleton (1833-1926) and they had two daughters: Margaret (married Dr. Chas T. Sibley) and Ann Elizabeth (Mrs. E. Meritt Post). His first wife, Margaret, was buried in St. James Cemetery in Toronto, and Thomas and Maria are buried in St. Paul’s Catholic Cemetery in London [Ontario].266
265 Nelson, Forest to Farm, 432. Appendix Ff: Short/Carr Marriage Certificate, Lang Archives, Short/Gunn Research Papers and Notes MG1-8B 266 Nelson, Forest to Farm, 432.
96
In 1851, Thomas was living with his wife and three of their children in a 1 ½ story framed house plastered with lime.267 Short ran into business trouble in the 1860s and eventually moved his family to Toronto where he was the bursar for the Central
Prison for 10 years. Then the family moved again to London, Ontario where he became the bursar of the London Lunatic Asylum.268 Short died at the age of 71 year
10 months in London. His cause of death was listed as inflammation of the bowels for three days.269 Despite leaving the Allandale/Lang community he was still recognised in a Peterborough Examiner obituary.270
Before establishing the mill Gayle Nelson suggests that Short was working at the store in Keene owned by Thomas Carr. 271 He may have also helped or apprenticed at the saw mill which was built between 1823-5.
Gunn records that Short attended either the Presbyterian or Methodist
Church according to whether he agreed with either Minister.272 In the 1852 Census
Short is recorded as a member of the Presbyterian Free Church.273
During his time in Allendale Short developed many of the first industries in the community. In 1846, he built the gristmill and also constructed the dam, which powers the mill.274 He went on to construct other related industries included a barrel factory located down river of the mill connected to the mill by a “narrow
267 Jane Deyman, Notes (Otonabee South-Monaghan Historical Society) 10. 268 Peterborough Examiner, July 7 1887, pg 3. 269 Appendix Fd: Archives of Ontario, Ontario Canada Deaths 1869-1938, Series MS935 Reel: 48 Entry 010292. 270 Peterborough Examiner, July 7 1887, pg 3. Accessed Trent Valley Archives. 271 Nelson, Forest to Farm, 119. 272 Appendix Ea: Gunn, Short Family History, 23. 273 1852 Census, Peterborough (East) Otonabee Township, pg 1a Accessed September 7, 2016 www.automatedgenealogy.com 274 Nelson, Forest to Farm, 110.
97 railway.”275 This allowed Short to make staves (curved wood used in barrel making), ship them to his cooperage, and then send completed barrels the mill. Any metal parts needed could be made at Short’s foundry. Short even advertised barrels of pork for sale in the Peterborough Examiner.276 He is described by one of his contemporaries as:
an enterprising and thorough business man, and as such is highly esteemed by all classes of the community; he is one of the largest wheat-buyers in the country and farmers taking their grain to Allendale Mills find a ready market and good prices; last year upwards of 60,000 bushels of wheat were purchased by Mr. Short; the amount already purchased by Mr. Short this season is enormous, already the quantity of oats exceeds 30,000 bushels, out of which about 30,000 barrels of oatmeal will be manufactured and sent to market; the wheat too, is being converted into the best brands of flour and shipped for foreign consumption.277
Furthermore Short owned the steamer the Otonabee. The Otonabee was launched at
Keene in 1853 (Figure 24).278 Richard Tatley called it “A side-wheeler with a low- pressure walking beam engine, the Otonabee was easily the finest vessel hitherto seen on the waterway.”279 This would have been an important part of Short’s industries as it allowed him to transport grain to any number of places. Local man
James Humphries kept an account book from 1848-1864 in which he lists the various jobs that he did for Short including work on the boat. For example, on
March 29th 1864 Humphries put in three days work on the steamboat.280 Short had
275 Nelson, Forest to Farm, 110. 276 Peterborough Examiner, October 20 1859, pg 3. 277 Peterborough Examiner March 14 1861, pg 2. 278 Peterborough Examiner, August 29 1931. 279 Richard Tatley, Steamboating on the Trent Severn, (Belleville: Mika Publishing Company, 1978), 19. 280 Appendix Fc: James Humphries, Account Book, 1848-1864, As Cited in Original Mill Binder, Lang Archives
98 developed a comprehensive set of industries in order to cut out any middlemen in the production and delivery of flour and thereby raise his profits.
Figure 24 - Steamer Otonabee on Rice Lake: A reconstruction, based on a sketch by E. Whitefield 1855. Richard Tatley, Steamboating on the Trent Severn, (Belleville: Mika Publishing Company, 1978), 19.
Short was an important part of local politics as well as a local dignitary.
Short served as the Warden of Peterborough County in 1850 and 1851. 281 He would later serve as an MPP for the Reform Party. Before Short became a member the
Reform party advocated for responsible government. Short was quoted at length in an 1858 newspaper article about a political meeting in Peterborough. He moved the following resolution,
That we view with alarm the present financial condition of the country. And we feel that we cannot too strongly condemn the reckless conduct of the present Ministry, who by their extravagance and wasteful expenditure, and for the mere sake of office, have sacrificed those great public interests which it was their duty to uphold and protect.282
Later in 1856 Short offered another resolution to be sent to the government from the Township of Otonabee, which was published in the Globe.283 Short’s obituary in the Peterborough Examiner states he was “highly respected, a staunch Reformer in politics, and worthy of the public confidence, as shown by his being twice elected,
281 Nelson, Forest to Farm, 24. 282 “Great Political Meeting at Peterboro’: The Government Emphatically Condemned,” The Globe, Oct 19, 1858 pg 2. 283 “Yet Another Verdict: Meeting in Otonabee,” The Globe, Aug 23, 1856 pg 2.
99 previous to Confederation to parliament, as the representative of Peterborough
County, comprising the present east and west ridings.284 These statements can be backed up by evidence that Short was seated at the head table at a dinner honouring
George Brown held in Cobourg in 1853.285 Short was also invited to meet Edward the Prince of Wales in 1860. 286 The Prince took the Otonabee across Rice Lake because the bridge across the lake was seen as unreliable.
One anecdote that was published in the Peterborough Examiner regarding
Short came out of a previous mistake. Apparently the Port Hope Guide published that Short had been severely frozen. However, Short was totally fine. Apparently the story got rolling because a Mr. A. Poe a clerk working for Short had his hands frozen but not so much as to “endanger” them.287
Daughter Ann Elizabeth 1842-1878
Short reportedly sent his oldest daughter Ann to a school in Montreal (Miss.
Lyman’s) and the village grapevine reported that she took seventeen silk dresses with her.288 According to family lore she won an “Amiability Prize” which was awarded to the favourite head girl by a vote of the school. The prize included a bracelet and a plate inscribed with the name and date.289
284 Peterborough Examiner, July 7 1887, pg 3. 285 “Great Demonstration at Cobourg: Dinner to Mr. George Brown M.P.P” The Globe, Sept 27, 1853 pg 2. 286 Appendix Ec: Gunn, Short Family History, 6. 287 Peterborough Examiner, February 14, 1861, pg 2.Accessed Trent Valley Archives. 288 Appendix Ec: Gunn, Short Family History, 6. 289 Appendix Ec: Gunn, Short Family History, 19.
100 Ann married David Gunn in 1866.290 Gunn died in 1870 four years after the couple married. Ann and her two children moved back in with her father and moved with him to Toronto. In 1878 Ann died of tuberculosis and was buried in
Cobourg.291 Ann’s children went to live with her brother Richard. Ann’s son
William Thomas (who was born in Keene) would become the Moderator of the newly formed United Church.292
Daughter Mary 1847-1872
Mary married Dr. Marshall Dean and died four months later. Janet Gunn the great-granddaughter of Thomas Short shared an anecdote about Mary. Apparently newly married she set off in the steamboat Otonabee to buy a cook stove in
Peterborough. As she was waving good-bye to her family standing on the dock the strap of her purse broke and took the purse and money for the stove to the bottom of the lake.293
Son Thomas C. 1849-1880
Thomas Jr. studied law at Osgood Hall in Toronto.294
Son Andrew 1852-?
Son Richard A. 1854-1902
290 Appendix Fe: Marriage Certificate, Short/Gunn Research Papers and Notes MG1- 8B 291 Appendix Ec: Gunn, Short Family History, 7. 292 Further information on William Thomas Gunn (Thomas Short’s grandson) consult an essay written by his daughter (Janet Gunn) held in the Lang Archives. 985.013.5 Short/Gunn Research Papers and Notes MG1-8B 293 Appendix Ec: Gunn, Short Family History, 20. 294 Appendix Ec: Gunn, Short Family History, 6.
101 Short’s youngest son Richard apparently never married and became a writer in Montreal. At age 24 he took in his sister Ann’s orphaned children William and
Margaret.295
Thomas Short, Lang Archives PGY1-14B (a)
295 Appendix Ec: Gunn, Short Family History, 1.
102 Thomas Short with Ann Elizabeth, Lang Archives, c. 1863 PG41- 14B (d)
Peterborough Examiner October 20 1859 pg 3
103 Wheat Advertisement , Peterborough Examiner June 1, 1860
Ann Elizabeth Short, Oil Portrait, Lang Archives 976.45.18
104 Ticket to Inauguration of Industrial Exhibition Montreal 1860, Lang Archives, MG1 -18 Thomas Short Family, 976.45.12 MG1-18 (l)
Check to Thomas Short, Lang Archives, MG1 -18 (k) Thomas Short Family, 976.45.2
Law Degree for Thomas C. Short, Lang Archives, MG1 -18 (p) Thomas Short Family, 976.45.14
Robert William Standley
105
Robert William Standley was married to Lilla.296 He was a resident of the
County of Northumberland.
Lewis Glover
The Glover family was said to live in a large frame building on the east side of the village. When the house was owned by the family it was a store and an inn.297
Lewis Glover’s wife was named Margaret.298 Daisy (Duncan) Fowler’s oral testimony states that he gave up running the mill because of bad rheumatism.299 It seems that before owning the Allandale Mill Glover worked as a miller at the Blythe Mills.
Glover also appears to have been a popular person in the community based on the poem written to him by a local poet.
To Lewis Glover Esq.
On the occasion of his leaving Peterborough, and the Membership of St. Andrew’s Church
Dear Sir, and Brother, we regret to know That from our midst you are resolved to go; It is our nature to contrive and plan, Changes are frequent in the life of man
If for your welfare you the change have made, Why should we murmur, grieve or be dismayed? If for your good all former ties are broke, Willing we bow to separation’s stroke
You know your duty, circumstances too, To better these you bid us all adieu, In your new sphere may prospects bright arise,
296 Instrument 1295, Microfilm 285A, Accessed Land Records at Ministry of Natural Resources. 297 Nelson, Forest to Farm, 112. 298 Instrument 1809, Microfilm 270A, Accessed Land Records at Ministry of Natural Resources. 299Appendix Ea: Fowler, Interview, Lang Archives.
106 All that you hope for may you realize.
Your sojourn here has gained you many friends, This night will prove how wide that love extends, Not empty words – as friends oft meet and part, But friendship’s outburst, binding heart to heart.
If I could now but read your thoughts aright, As you sit here within these wall to-night – Grief inward striving your joy to erase, As you look round on each familiar face.
Here you have worshipped over thirty years, The thought of leaving almost causes tears; The seed here sown on soil fertile and good Bears up your nature strengthens your fortitude.
We can’t allow you quietly to depart Without some tribute from each grateful heart, ‘Tis not their value makes their worth so great, It is the source from whence they emanate.
Accept these offerings, trifling thought they be, As true mementoes of respect for thee; They are but shadows of a nobler part, As types of love flowing from each heart.
This kind address hang on your parlour wall Each time you view it, this night it will recall, Reading those verses may your interest find, They will bring back old friendships to your mind.
With our best wishes to your new home go, On you and yours may Heaven’s best blessings flow, Though ties be severed that have long been true, We part in hope again to meet with you.300
300 William Telford Smith, The Poems of William Telford Smith, (Peterborough Examiner Office J.R. Straton, 1887), 63. Accessed at the Peterborough Museum and Archives
107 Peterborough Examiner January 16 1862 pg 3
E.J. Toker
Edward John Toker lived in Peterborough but by 1893 was living in the City of Ottawa in the County of Carleton.301
William J. Humphries
Humphries was married to Adeline Beatrice.302 Humphries sold flour under the name Defiance.
301 Instrument 5006, Accessed Trent Valley Archives. 302 Instrument 5946, Microfilm 285A, Accessed Land Records at Ministry of Natural Resources.
108 Lang Mill, Unknown Accession Number Hung on the wall on the inner office exhibit.
Photo of William Humphries, Frances Cardwell Personal Collection
Lang Archives This file contains sales books from the time of Humphries Organizations ownership. and Businesses, Sales Books, MG4 – 11 (x- ae) Sale Books Lang Archives This file contains sales books from the time of Humphries
109 Organizations ownership. and Businesses, Sales Books, MG4 – 11 (ae- ah) Sale Books
Arthur Nelson
Arthur Nelson was born to David Nelson (1807-1882) and Janet (Esson) on
July 28, 1861. He was born in Scotland and was Presbyterian. He could read and write.303 Arthur was the youngest of 12 children including John, George, Robert,
David, James, Lydia, Margaret, Jane, Ellen, Janet, and Isabella. David’s parents were
Andrew (1799-1840) and Catherine [Stewart] (1807-1891). Andrew’s parents were
John Neilson (1773-1837) and Janet Weir (1774-1829). John and Janet immigrated to Canada in 1818. Nelson was single in 1901 at the time of the census and listed his occupation as a saw miller.304 He was still single in 1904 when he purchased the mill.305
Lewis J. Squair
Squair started manufacturing pastry flour at the mill under the name
‘Nevada.’ He was born March 1871 and was age 40 at the time of the 1911 census.
He was born in England to a Scottish father. Lewis was a boarder with Charles
Edwards. In the census he is listed as married but his wife is not named. His religion was Presbyterian. He supplemented his earnings with hunting and fishing but he
303 1901 Census, Peterborough (East), Otonabee, u-3, 7, 42. Accessed September 7, 2016 www.automatedgenealogy.com 304 1901 Census, Peterborough (East), Otonabee, u-3, 7, 42. Accessed September 7, 2016 www.automatedgenealogy.com 305 Instrument 6763, Microfilm 292A, Accessed Land Records at Ministry of Natural Resources
110 also fit into the self-employed or owner category. He could read and write.306
Squair set Willaim E. Lech and Vincent A. Barnett as his executors. They in turn ensured that Mary Clarkson received the land and the mill upon his death. Mary was
Squair’s daughter.307
Lang Archives 987.10.2
306 1911 Census, Peterborough (East), Otonabee Township 27, 5, 10. Accessed September 7, 2016 www.automatedgenealogy.com 307 Instrument 10297, Microfilm 310A, Land Record Accessed Ministry of Natural Resources.
111 Lang Archives 2013.011.002
Lang Archives 2013.011.002
Mary E. Clarkson
112 Mary ran the mill with her husband John Billington Clarkson (commonly known as Jack).308 She was the last owner before the land and the mill were transferred to The Otonabee Region Conservation Authority. In the last years of running the mill it seems that the Clarkson’s dealt mostly in feed grain. However, one document suggests that they still ground a small amount of white flour for local use.309
The Clarkson’s cash and account books are in the Lang archives. Below is the transcription of a single page from the July 1925 cash book.
Frances Cardwell, Personal Collection.
July 1925 Cash Month Day Person & Price Book, Lang Product Archives July 10 J Edwards
308 Instrument 140071, Microfilm Reg 379, Land Record Accessed Ministry of Natural Resources. 309 Appendix Fg: Sheiliagh Grant, ORCA, Lang Archives
113 30 lbs Wheat .80 July 10 W Weir 100 + 24 4.00 Pastry July 10 G Gall Check 500 + 24 20.00 Pastry July 10 D. Elmhurst 90 Short 1.60 50 Bran .80 July 10 D. Fife 50 Short .85 July 13 W. Spices 90 lbs Shorts 1.60 July 13 R Renwick 130 lbs Bran 2.10 July 13 B. Starifn 100 Shorts 1.75 July 13 W Hastie 24 Pastry 1.15 July 13 J Graham Check 1025 Shorts 17.40 July 13 A Edwards 100 Shorts 1.75 55 Bran .90 July 13 N Redpath 24 Pastry 1.15
Lang Archives 987.10.2
Lang Archives This file in the Lang Archives contains certificates and recipts
114 Organisations related to the time the Clarksons ran the mill. and Businesses, Lang Mill Papers MSg – 11 (q & r)
MILL MANAGERS
The following chart shows the various managers of the mill. It becomes more common for the mill owner and manager to be the same person later in the mill’s history.
115 Year Person Occupation Place Citation 1858 Richard Short Miller Allandale Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1858 (pg 31) Accessed at the Peterborough Museum and Archives 1858 William West Millwright Allandale Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1858 (pg 31) Accessed at the Peterborough Museum and Archives 1861 A large amount of gristing is also done here; about Peterborough Examiner March 10,000 to 12,000 bushels of wheat are usually ground 14, 1861 pg 2. of home consumption. The head miller is Mr. Curry and the buyer and general manager is Mr. Richard Short. 1865-66 Richard Short Sr. Postmaster, Allandale Mills Directory for the United Counties Proprietor of of Peterborough flour, grist, and Victoria 1865-6 (pg 99) oatmeal, and saw Accessed at the mills Peterborough Museum and Archives 1865-66 Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1865-6 (pg 99) Accessed at the Peterborough Museum and Archives
1870-1 Richard Short Allandale Mills Directory for the United Counties (P.M and Mill of Peterborough Owner) and Victoria 1870-1 (pg 12) Thomas Short Accessed at the (Founder) Peterborough Museum and Archives 1870-1 Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1870-1 (pg 12) Accessed at the Peterborough Museum and Archives
116 1876 Abraham J. Van Lang P west Directory for the United Counties Ingan half lot 18 con of Peterborough 6. and Victoria 1876 (Pg 141) Accessed at the Peterborough Museum and Archives 1876 Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1876 (Pg 141) Accessed at the Peterborough Museum and Archives Peterborough County Atlas 1825-1875 Peterborough Historic Atlas Foundation Inc. (Pg 117) Accessed at the Peterborough Museum and Archives 1885 John Duncan Miller Peterborough Examiner September 3, 1885. 1887 John Duncan Miller Lang Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1887 (pg A 24) Accessed at the Peterborough Museum and Archives 1887 Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1887 (pg A 24) Accessed at the Peterborough Museum and Archives
1890 John Duncan Miller Lang Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1890 (pg 54) Accessed at the Peterborough Museum and Archives
117 1890 Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1890 (pg 54) Accessed at the Peterborough Museum and Archives
1893 John Duncan Miller Lang Directory for the Counties of Haliburton, Peterboro, Simcoe, and Victoria 1893 (pg 45) Microfilm 1/5 Accessed at the Trent Valley Archives 1893 Directory for the Counties of Haliburton, Peterboro, Simcoe, and Victoria 1893 (pg 45) Microfilm 1/5 Accessed at the Trent Valley Archives 1897-8 Humphries & Son Millers Lang Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1897-8 (pg A 48) Accessed at the Peterborough Museum and Archives 1897-8 Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1897-8 (pg A 48) Accessed at the Peterborough Museum and Archives 1901 Arthur Nelson Miller 1901 Census, Peterborough (East), Otonabee, u-3, 7, 42 www.automat edgeneology.co m The following three men all listed their occupation as miller for Otonabee Township in the 1911 census. Lewis Squair owned the mill at one point. William Wedlock
118 owned a piece of property nearby. However, it is unclear which one was working at the Lang mill. 1911 Walter Hancox Miller 1911 Census, Peterborough (East), Otonabee Township, 27, 5, 44 www.automat edgeneology.co m 1911 Lewis Squair Miller 1911 Census, Peterborough (East), Otonabee Township 27, 5, 10 www.automat edgeneology.co m 1911 William Robert Miller 1911 Census, Peterborough Wedlock (East), Otonabee Township, 23, 10, 6 www.automat edgeneology.co m
Mill Manager Biographies
119 Richard Short
Mary Short 1839-1910
Jane Short Richard Short 1840-1902 1769-1832 Richard David Margaret Short Short 1846-1924 Mary Carr 1881-1953 1773-1838 Richard Short 1804-1880 William John Isabella Short Short 1849-1923 1884-1885 John Hope Isabel Hope Died 1865 1814-1901 W. John Short Ernest Short 1884-1884 1886-1887 Jane Caines Died 1855 Richard J.H. Harry Short Short 1887-1966
Eva Jean Short 1893-1966
Roy Short 1897-1956
William Short
Figure 25 - Richard Short Family Tree Developed By the Author Based On Nelson, Forest to Farm, 430. / Short Family History, Otonabee- South Monaghan Historical Society / Cemetery Transcripts Box 3, 2 Keene Upper Cemetery, Otonabee Township, Accessed at the Trent Valley Archives.
Richard Short (Jr.) had three brothers Andrew, John, Thomas (mill builder
and owner), and one sister Isabella. His parents Richard Short (Sr.) (1769-1832)
and his wife Mary Carr (1773-1838) emigrated from Alnwick Parish,
Northumberland. They are both buried in Keene Lower Cemetery.
Richard married Isabel Hope. She immigrated with her parents and two
brothers from Wendrum, England to New York State in 1815. Her family likely
moved to Canada in 1819. In Canada three more brothers and two more daughters
were added to the family.
120 Isabel and Richard had six children Mary, Jane, Isabella, Margaret, and
Richard J.H, W. John.310 Richard’s daughter Margaret died in a drowning accident.311
Richard J.H. married Elizabeth West and had seven children.312 The family is buried together in the north half of the Keene Upper Cemetery. The marker reads: “Richard
Short 17 April 1880, age 76 years 8mos. Wife Isabella Hope 8 Oct 1901 Age 87 years
4 mons. Mary 1839-1910, Jane 1840-1902, Isabella 1849-1923, Margaret 1846-
1924, W. John Short 20 Feb. 1884, age 10 mos.”313
Short was a contributed to the life of the town. Short is credited with helping to construct the Lang town hall.314 Short also served as the Post Master at the second post office in Otonabee from its opening in 1860 to 1880. His daughter Mary
Short took over at the post office from 1880-1910.315
Peterborough “Melancholy Accident – Our Examiner May 27, readers will be shocked to learn 1858 pg 3. that on Monday, the Queen’s Accessed Trent Birthday, Miss Margaret Short, Valley Archives. niece of Thomas Short, Esq., M.P.P., was drowned at Healy’s Falls. Miss Short formed one of an excursion party on the steamer Otonabee, making a trip from Keene to Healy’s. While walking down one side of the slide, made for the passage of timber, it is supposed she got dizzy, and the pass being narrow, she fell. A young man, by the name of John Lunderville, who was standing at the end of the slide
310 Nelson, Forest to Farm. 207. 311 Peterborough Examiner May 27, 1858 pg 3. Accessed Trent Valley Archives. 312 Nelson, Forest to Farm. 430. 313 Cemetery Transcripts Box 3, 2 Keene Upper Cemetery Keene, Otonabee Township. Accessed Trent Valley Archives. 314 Nelson Forest to Farm, 111. 315 Nelson, Forest to Farm. 292.
121 about 15 feet from her at the time, jumped in immediately upon seeing her situation, and floated with the current in the same direction for some distance, but though he at times got quite close to her, he did not succeed in getting hold of her, and had he not received assitance from Mr. John L. Read, who had the presence of mind to run down to a point below him and reached him a pole, he also would have been drowned. A party of Lumbermen, when they heard of the disaster, manned the small boat belonging to the Otonabee, and ran the slide, but before they got down to where she was last seen, she had disappeared. A young gentleman who was standing next to Lunderville, speaks in such high terms of his gallantry that we have the greatest pleasure in giving it all the publicity in our power. Considering the danger to himself that was inseparable from the set, and the suddenness of his determination, it is abundantly evident that his heart beats with the stongest impulse towards relieving the distress of his fellow creatures. He is one of the heroic stamp, who take the world by surpise when the occasion offers for the exhibition of disinterested gallantry, while they are content to be numbered with the undistinguished.”316
316 Peterborough Examiner May 27, 1858 pg 3. Accessed Trent Valley Archives.
122 Gayle, Nelson Forest to Farm: Early Days in Otonabee. (Township of Otonabee-South Monaghan: 150th Anniversary Committee), 2000, 431.
William West
West was likely the millwright who set up the Lang mill. Millwrights helped in the construction of mills and millponds. They helped to procure machinery and needed to have skills in order to build effective dams.317 It is possible that William built a large house on the northeast corner of Villiers.318 William married Jane
Hope. Their children were Jean, Annie, Isabel, Maggie, Elizabeth, David, William,
John and Mary.319
Abraham J. Van Ingan
The Peterborough County Atlas states that Van Ingan immigrated to Keene from the USA in 1870.320 His occupation is listed as miller. He was living on the south part of Lot 1. In 1876 he was living at Lang in the area of the mill.321
317 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 24, 51. 318 Nelson, Forest to Farm. 112. 319 Nelson, Forest to Farm. 207. 320 Peterborough County Atlas 1825-1875 Peterborough Historic Atlas Foundation Inc. (Pg 117) Accessed at the Peterborough Museum and Archives
123
John Duncan
John Duncan wrote that he was born on June 23, 1844. He was of Scottish origin and Canadian nationality. His religion was Methodist.322 Most of the additional information that is known about Duncan comes from an interview given by John Duncan’s daughter Daisy (Duncan) Fowler.323 Daisy was born in
Peterborough April 16th 1876 and lived at the mill from age 9-16.
Duncan’s daughter states that John Duncan moved from Montreal to run the
Blythe Mills that were owned by Denne and Glover. Her account gives the impression that her father owned the mill for a number of years but his name does not appear in the land abstracts. She believed that John Duncan had won a medal in
Montreal for his stone dressing. Duncan had two sons that were born in Montreal and at the time of the move to Peterborough the boys were 6 and 10. Dunan and his wife also lost a baby girl between both sons.
Family history says that Duncan went to Rochester for a sharp shooting competition in 1866 and placed first. The family says that he won a rifle which is still in family possesion.324
By the time of the 1901 census John Duncan and his family had moved to town. Duncan was living with his wife Jane and daughter Daisy along with two boarders Theresa Miller and Elisabeth Miller and their niece Gertrude Simeon in
321 Directory for the United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria 1876 (Pg 141) Accessed at the Peterborough Museum and Archives 322 1901 Census, Peterborough (West), Otonabee, d-12, 3, 15 Accessed September 7, 2016 http://automatedgenealogy.com 323 Appendix Ea: Fowler, Interview, Lang Archives 324 Appendix Ga: Al Seymour, Email to Author, May 3, 2016. The researcher tried to follow up on this through the Rochester Library newspaper finding aids but was unsuccessful.
124 District No. 107 West Peterborough town.325 Ducan was working as six months of the year as a cabinet maker earning $50 annually from this trade. Daisy Duncan suggested that her father left the mill because of the new way of making flour. “The bran was taken off, but it was a new thing, so after he had had it 18 years he decided to sell, and he came back into Peterborough.”326
Peterborough Examiner September 3, 1885.
325 1901 Census, Peterborough (West), Otonabee, d-12, 3, 15 Accessed September 7, 2016 http://automatedgenealogy.com 326 Appendix Ea: Fowler, Interview, Lang Archives
125 Personal family photo provided by Al Seymour
A copy is also with Daisy Duncan’s account.
It is labled 1885 C-34612 PAC
1. Neighbor Girl – Weir 2. Daisy (Duncan) Fowler 3. Jane Duncan (Mother) 4. John Duncan (Father and Miller) 5. John Duncan (Son) 6. William Duncan
126 John Duncan with his son John. Likely from 1873.
Personal family photo provided by Al Seymour John’s daughter was Mr. Seymour’s great- great aunt.
Arthur Nelson
For information on Arthur Nelson see Mill Owner Biographies.
Walter Hancox
Walter was the head of his family; he was born April 1885. His wife was named Lily; she was born April, 1879. They both had Canadian nationality but were of English origin. He supplemented his income with fishing and hunting. He was employed at the mill 52 weeks of the year and he worked about 54 hours each week.
He earned $475 per year. She had $1000 in life insurance. They may have attended
Bethel the local Methodist church.327
Lewis Squair
For information on Lewis Squair see Mill Owner Biographies.
327 1911 Census, Peterborough (East), Otonabee Township, 27, 5, 44. Accessed September 7, 2016 http://automatedgenealogy.com
127
William Robert Wedlock
William was the head of the household. He was born in January 1888. He was of Irish origin and was married to Flora Curler. She was born in April 1892.
She was of English origin and came to Canada via the United States. They had a 1- year-old son William Charles born April 1910. The whole family had Canadian nationality. Their religion was stated as Methodist. They could both read and write.
One of his divisions of labour was a manufacturer of food and he states that he is his own employer. He had a life insurance policy of $1000 they paid $27.95 for the insurance each year.328
BREAD
328 1911 Census, Peterborough (East), Otonabee Township, 27, 5, 44. Accessed September 7, 2016 http://automatedgenealogy.com
128 For centuries wheat has been a staple food the world. Bread is the next step in the journey from field to table. Wheat and the bread that is made from it has important social, political and economic impacts on the world. Food and bread has also been an effective interpretive technique that can help interpreters to relate to the information and to their personal experiences.329
Since medieval times the whiteness of bread has been an indication of status.
The whitest and finest bread and flour went to the upper classes.330 The cost of bread was very important to people. A good or bad harvest could mean the difference between feast and famine. In England there was a complex series of laws called the Assize of Bread, which regulated prices. This was to ensure regular bread supply and prevent revolution.331 Simplistically, bread has been pointed to playing a role in both the French Revolution and Russian Revolution of 1917 as a lack of bread, a staple food, could cause civil unrest.332
Bread was labour intensive work. Beyond all of the work to plant and harvest the wheat then bring it to the mill actually baking bread was labour intensive. Wood needed to be cut and split to cook the bread. Women performed highly skilled labour in order to get the bread to rise. Girls were taught from a young age how to use yeast and what temperature ovens needed to be.333 Making bread also required kneading the dough, a physically exhausting process. One
329 Michelle Moon, Interpreting Food at Museums and Historic Sites Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield 2016 34 330 Mary Ellen Snodgrass, Encyclopaedia of Kitchen History, (New York: Fitzroy Dearbon, 2004), 68. 331 Ronald Sheppard and Edward Newton, The Story of Bread (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957), 48. 332 Sheppard, The Story of Bread, 58. 333 Ruth Schwartz Cowan, “How We Get Our Daily Bread, or the History of Domestic Technology Revealed” OAH Magazine of History 12, no. 2 (1998): 9.
129 piece of farm lore is that the lightest or best flour ends up on the top of the barrel.
Apparently many farmers would upend the barrel so at to enjoy an especially fine loaf of bread from the last flour.334
Industrialisation changed the nature of men’s work making flour easier to produce with automatic rollers and men started working outside of the home.
However, women still were deeply involved in the labour of making bread.
Automatic milling made flour less expensive, which resulted in its increased use.
“Bread replaced porridge (which is much less labour intensive) as the grain staple of
American diets – and cake and pie (which had once been served only sparingly) became standard elements of everyday meals.”335 Cracked wheat (wheat that contains the whole kernel) became less popular. In response to one proposed diet during World War Two one woman reported “do you think I could give [my husband] cracked wheat, sugar and milk and toast for breakfast an’ not end up in the divorce court?”336 This anecdote shows the changes that had occurred in diets.
The labour that happened to make flour into bread an important conclusion to the milling process that should not be forgotten.
As more and more women worked outside of the home during the twentieth century they turned to purchasing the cheap, pre-sliced, wrapped bread. Wonder bread was developed in the 1920s. At the New York world fair in 1939 Wonder
Bread had a pavilion in which 10,000 loaves popped out of automated pans per
334 Lauriston, A Century of Milling, 20. 335 Schwartz, “How We Get Our Daily Bread,” 9. 336 Ian Mosby, Food Will Win the War: The Politics, Culture, and Science of Food on Canada’s Home Front, (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2014), 204.
130 hour.337 In England in 1953 the government stipulated that if flour was being sifted for colour then extra synthetic nutrients should be added.338
Canada provided wheat for bread for the British Empire during the World
Wars. During the Second World War, particularly the years of 1939 and 1940
Canada had a very abundant wheat crop.339 The abundance meant that the
Canadian Wheat Board was put in charge of ensuring that the wheat was delivered to elevators and mills so that one elevator or mill was not overflowing.340 Canadian food imports were a significant part of Canadian wartime contributions. Estimates put Canadian exports of wheat and flour at 77% of British wheat and flour consumption in 1941 and 57% in 1945.341 These exports were facilitated by government bulk purchases of important commodities like wheat.342 Canadians on the home front were made aware of the importance of Canada’s food contributions with various media such as film, print, and radio, which told Canadians “Food Will
Win The War.”343 This interaction shaped Canadian identity and foreign relations.
Food is still important to people. However, they are increasingly separated from the production of the things they eat. “Slow Food” is a movement that encourages people to take an interest is where their food comes from and to eat local foods rather than fast foods.344 It is people like slow foodies who are
337 Snodgrass, Encyclopaedia, 71. 338 Sheppard, The Story of Bread, 78. 339 G.E. Britnell and V.C. Fowke, Canadian Agriculture in War and Peace 1935-1950, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962), 203. 340 Britnell, Canadian Agriculture, 204. 341 Mosby, Food Will Win the War, 4. 342 Mosby, Food Will Win the War, 4. 343 Mosby, Food Will Win the War, 63. 344 Slow Food, Home, About Us, Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.slowfood.com/about-us/
131 interested in buying their flour in smaller more local portions. Red Fife wheat has been one project of the slow food movement and they have introduced it to artisan bakeries.345 This is a complicated process as the Canadian Wheat Board has not registered Red Fife wheat, which means it cannot be legally grown for human consumption.346 This is due to the “modern expectations about yield and quality, the latter largely defined in terms of disease resistance and conformity. Taste, it should be noted, has never been a quality characteristic in Canadian variety registration.”347 Lang as a small local mill could be considered part of the slow food movement because of the unique flour that it produces.
345 Slow Food, Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity, Home, Slow Food Presidia, Canada, Red Fife Wheat, Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.fondazioneslowfood.com/en/slow-food-presidia/red-fife-wheat/ 346 Sarah Musgrave, “Grain Elevated: The Fall and Rise of Red Fife Wheat,” in What’s to Eat? Entrees in Canadian Food History, ed. Nathalie Cooke, (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009), 155. 347 Musgrave, “Grain Elevated,” 155.
132 Running the Mill
Current Milling Process
This process is illustrated by Figure 26.
1. Grain comes in on the cart. a. This grain is donated to the mill. It comes from the company pre- cleaned. The grain comes from the P and H Milling Group based in Canada and comes as re-cleaned hard wheat. 2. Grain is poured in the hopper. a. The grain travels to the basement where it turns around in a boot or ‘U’ shaped part of the elevators. In any place where the grain travels down the mill is fed by gravity. This helps to prevent clogging. b. The grain travels up to the third floor, it is then stored in the semi- holding bin on the 2nd floor until it enters the rollers to be ground. The elevators have 60 cups each. 3. The grain flows to the grinder or double rolling mills. Here it is ground up. The first grinder the grain travels through is called the breaker roll. a. This flow of grain is controlled by a lever on the first floor just above the rollers outside of the cage. b. The coarse flour goes from the machine turns around in the boot and goes back up to the third floor. c. There are teardrop shaped pieces of wood covering holes in the shafts which would allow the miller to check on the progress of the grain. The teardrops are screwed down for safety to prevent visitors from putting foreign matter in the machinery. 4. The coarse flour goes through the scalper, which separates the fine flour from any large pieces of coarse flour. The large pieces go back down to the rollers (Step 4). a. This scalper (also referred to as a sifter, bolter, or middlings grinder) is sifting for whole wheat so it has a fine metal mesh to sift. 5. The finished flour travels from the scalper to the first floor to be packed or bagged. a. Frances Cardwell said she believed the historical mill would produce one ton of flour per hour.348
348 Frances Cardwell Interview, with Victoria Veenstra July 11, 2016
133
Current Milling Techniques
d
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Figure 26 – Current Milling Techniques Drawing by the Author 2016
134 Historical Milling Process 1) Water runs through the raceway (called a flume) under the building turning the turbine. a. The flume and turbine are protected from being clogged by a series of metal bars across the raceway called a forebay rack or trash rack. b. When water levels are high any excess water is released through an overflow pipe at the end of the flume. 2) The grain travels into the mill on a cart. 3) The grain is weighed. a. To weigh the grain place the cart on the scale. Then engage the top lever. Add the circular weights to the hanging mechanism. Then balance out the center bar by moving the sliding gauge. The number in the small divot in the sliding gauge added to the weight on the hanging mechanism is how much the grain weighs. This works very similarly to a doctors scale. (It is important to disengage the handle for safety). 4) The grain goes through the separator to take out any foreign matter like twigs, stones or weed seeds. a. The grain would then travel to the basement for the grain to be cleaned in a second separator. The second machine has brushes and air and no shaking trays. The second cleaner would help to remove chaff from the wheat. i. Any dust created by this process is sucked up by the cyclone dust collector on the second floor. Powder goes to the dust room on the third floor to be sold as chicken scratch while the air travels through spouting and out the window.349 b. Some farmers used fanning mills to avoid losing weight at the mill. The fanning mill cleans out chaff. 5) After the grain is cleaned it is weighed again. The miller does this to avoid paying the farmer for waste product. a. It is unclear how or where the grain would be weighed the second time because of various shafts have been removed. 6) The grain is poured into the hopper. a. Once clean the grain is carried up to the 3rd Floor 7) Grain that would not be ground right away would be directed to storage. a. Historically there would have been bins on the second floor for storage.350 There is a single storage bin on the second floor as an example. b. The grain could be directed to storage using the lever on the first floor above the hopper. The miller knew where the grain was being directed based on nails on the pillar behind the lever.
349 It is unclear whether this machine was positioned to collect dust from above the grinder or if this machine would be positioned near the cleaners where chaff was separated from the grain. 350 Cardwell believed that there would be about twelve on the second floor. Frances Cardwell, Interview: Mill Mechanics, 4:54.
135 8) Grain being ground would pass through spouting (a downward slanted shaft) with magnets. a. The magnets prevented any pieces of metal that might be in with the grain from reaching the machinery where it could cause a spark. Metal could end up in the grain through equipment that was used to harvest the grain. b. This flow of grain was controlled by a lever on first floor (outside of cage) 9) Grain travels down to the grinder (double rolling mill) on the first floor. a. Before grain reaches the rollers the grain would pass through a chamber full of steam from the boiler (Steam Jenny). The moisture causes the bran to lift off in a flake. This is needed for cake or pastry flour where the whitest flour is desirable. The mill does not currently use steam because the bran is incorporated into whole-wheat flour. 10) Flour passes from the grinders to the basement and turns around in the boot or ‘U’ shaped turnaround at the bottom of the leg (vertical shaft). a. The chop, whole wheat, and white flour all go to the third floor. 11) The flour is sifted or ‘bolted’ in the scalper. a. The original machine would have been the Stratford flour sifter. This machine would have created white flour using silk screens. b. The mill currently sifts for whole-wheat flour using the Improved Scalper, which has metal screens. 12) Flour that was not fine enough would be directed back to step nine and be reground. a. This was called the gradual reduction process. It ensured that every bit of usable grain was turned into flour. 13) After being sifted the finished flour would travel to the first floor to the collector or packer. a. Here the flour would be packaged for shipment either in barrels, sacks or bags.
136
Wheat and Wheat Kernels
There are two primary kinds of wheat: winter and spring. Spring wheat is typically sown in April and harvested in August and September. Winter wheat is typically sown in October and harvested in June.351 In his practical tips for millers in
Britain Edward Bradfield suggests that the most desirable wheat is “strong” wheat.352 He states that the most desirable and typically the most expensive wheats are the “best spring wheats of the United States and Canada.”353
Many kernels of wheat grow on one stalk (Figure 27). The wheat seed or kernel is sometimes referred to as the berry. The kernels are removed from the stalk by threshing. The stalk becomes straw and is used for bedding in the barn for animals and also in straw mattresses. Straw can have some benefits if fed to cows as it contains fibre, but this is not done frequently354 While on the stalk the wheat seed is protected by a seed coat or chaff (Figure 28). This is the part of the wheat the farmer would try to clean off of his grain before bringing it to the mill. The chaff acts in a similar way to the husk on a cob of corn holding the grain to the stalk. Wheat contains three major parts the bran or outer layer, the germ, which is the part would sprout if planted, and the endosperm, which is the main part of the kernel, which is
351 Edward Bradfield, Wheat and the Flour Mill: A Handbook for Practical Flour Millers (Liverpool: The Northern Publishing Company, 1920), 7,8. 352 Bradfield, Wheat and the Flour Mill, 4. 353 Bradfield, Wheat and the Flour Mill, 4. 354 OMFRA, “Straw: Golden Opportunity” English, Livestock, Dairy, Facts, Accessed September 7, 2016 http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/livestock/dairy/facts/strawgold.htm
137 ground into flour (Figure 29). The endosperm composes about 83% of the seed.355
It is sometimes referred to a semolina. The crease in the wheat kernel can contain dirt or other elements, which would discolour the grain this was another important part of cleaning. White flour is wheat with both the bran and the germ removed.
Whole wheat keeps all three parts, which includes good nutrients. The germ is the part of the wheat that can become rancid and this is why it was important to keep the flour dry.356 Lang recommends that the whole-wheat flour they sell be kept in the freezer as it contains no preservatives.
Figure 27 - Wheat on its shaft. Photo by Author (2016)
Figure 28 - Wheat kernel with seed coat (left) and without (right). Photo by the Author (2016)
355 George Fischer and Mark Harris, Ontario’s Historic Mills, (Erin: Boston Mills Press, 2007), 17. 356 Felicity Leung, Grist and Flour Mills in Ontario (Canada: Parks Canada National Historic Parks and Sites Branch, 1981),103.
138
Figure 29 – The Parts of a Wheat Kernel Photo by the Author (2016)
139 Mill Machinery
Many of the mill’s machines are from Wm and J.G. Greey Mill Furnishings. They were very popular in Ontario.357 They operated out of a building in Toronto and offered every imaginable piece of equipment that a miller might need. The company even offered some instruction to millwrights in terms of how to set the machinery including turbines properly.358 Apparently some mills had been experiencing difficulty in either directing the water to the turbine or getting the discharge water away from the turbine. This resulted in less power being created than promised. This shows the comprehensive involvement that Wm and J.G. Greey had in helping customers. The following information on the machines is arranged first by floor then by alphabet.
357 Fisher and Harris, Ontario’s Historic Mills, 23. 358 Wm. & J.G. Greey, Illustrated General Catalogue of Mill Machinery and Supplies (Toronto: 1901), 137.
140 THE FOREBAY RACK Floor: Basement Manufacturer: The Lang forebay rack is of unknown provenance but a similar rack was sold by Wm. and J.G. Greey. Purpose: The rack keeps debris from clogging up the raceway and the turbine. Details: Catalogue: Wm. & J.G. Greey, Illustrated General Catalogue of Mill Machinery and Supplies (Toronto: 1888), 100.
141 TURBINE Floor: Basement Manufacturer: Unknown Purpose: The turbine powers all of the machinery in the mill. Details: The turbine on the first floor serves as an example of the turbine that is in operation under the mill. The brass tap on the floor opens the mechanism inside of the turbine allowing it to turn. Only the inner workings of the turbine actually turn, this is not visible from the exterior of the turbine. Citation: 1901 Wm and J.G. Greey 137.
142 CLEANER Floor: 1 Manufacturer: Wm & J.G. Greey Co. Purpose: This machine would clean the grain before it went into the hopper. Details: A second cleaner is located in the basement. One of the most difficult things to separate out from the grain was the cockle seed, which had the same diameter and wheat and ripened at the same time.359 Another thing that was difficult to sift out was smut. Smut was a disease that turned the endosperm to black dust.360 Many millers turned to special machinery in order to deal with these problems. The cleaner at Lang had several steps. Grain would be poured in the top. First it would go through a suction separator, which would take out anything light including smut. The fan for this function is located in the rounded portion on the left. The grain would then fall on progressive screens, which would shake and remove smaller and smaller undesirables starting with sticks and ending with cockle.361 The grain would then go to a similar machine in the basement. The least expensive model was $140. Catalogue: Wm. & J.G. Greey, Illustrated General Catalogue of Mill Machinery and Supplies (Toronto: 1888), 11.
359 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 117. 360 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 117. 361 Greey, 1901 Catelogue, 17.
143 COLLECTOR or PACKER Floor: 1 Manufacturer: There are no markings on this packer but a similar one is in the Greey catalogue. Purpose: This is where the flour would be packed either in flour sacks or barrels. Details: The lever on the side is pulled to release the finished flour into its container. From the Greey Company this piece including the cone cost $22.50. There was likely two of these machines as a hole where the machine would have sat can be seen from makings on the floor above. Catalogue: Wm. & J.G. Greey, Illustrated General Catalogue of Mill Machinery and Supplies (Toronto: 1888), 47.
144 DOUBLE ROLLER MILL Floor: 1 Manufacturer: W & J.C. Greey Toronto [1887?] Purpose: The Roller Mill grinds the grain and turns it to flour. Details: The first roller that the grain would enter was the breaker, which would turn the grain into middlings. The successive rollers would crush the wheat into finer flour. “The adjustment for setting the rolls is positive, and can be regulated to the ten-thousandth part of an inch.”362 This step was very important to millers as they wished to break off the bran from the kernel but not to make it shred or powder.363 If the bran breaks completely down it would discolour the flow. Rollers were an important development because they had many advantages over traditional millstones. Historian Felicity Leung describes these succulently “In milling flour, roller machines did not demolish the woody hulls of the grain as much as millstones did, did not get as hot as millstones, required less power, were not dressed as often, and required less surveillance. They did 37% more work requiring 47% less power, ran for months without changing, increased the yield per given amount of wheat and made a whiter flour with fewer fragments of hull and germ.”364 This shows the importance of adopting this machinery. The machine was advertised as easy to oil and had a “convenient means of cleaning out.”365 It is also noted that the machine evenly feeds the grain into the rollers, which was important to having a fine grinding process. Catalogue: Wm. & J.G. Greey, Illustrated General Catalogue of Mill Machinery and Supplies (Toronto: 1901), 53, 56.
362 Dominion Mechanical & Milling News, July 1887 Vol. VIII No. III http://eco.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.8_04279_47/2?r=0&s=1 363 Bradfield Wheat and the Flour Mill, 83. 364 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 190. 365 Greey, 1901 Catalogue, 53.
145 FARM FEED GRINDER Floor: 1 Manufacturer: Unknown Purpose: This machine takes grain and turns it into chop for cattle. Details: This machine can be used to illustrate the changes that occurred to milling. More and more farmers were able to grind their own feed grain on the farm by hooking up this machine to a tractor.
146 MOTION AND SPEED INDICATOR Floor: 1st Manufacturer: Wm. And J.G. Greey Purpose: This machine measures speed variation in the machinery. Details: It would have rung a bell if the machinery speed changed either faster or slower. This was valuable as it would help to prevent belts from slipping or running off.366 Citation: Wm. & J.G. Greey, Illustrated General Catalogue of Mill Machinery and Supplies (Toronto: 1888), 54.
366 Greey, Catalogue 1888, 55.
147 SCALE Floor: 1st Manufacturer: Unknown but details for a similar one manufactured by Wm and J.G. Greey are included below. Purpose: The scales provide an accurate weight for the wheat coming in. Details: A scale with a drop leaver like the one in the mill would have to be specifically ordered. The least expensive dormant (stationary) scale was $60.367 Citation: Wm. & J.G. Greey, Illustrated General Catalogue of Mill Machinery and Supplies (Toronto: 1901), 383.
367 Greey, Catalogue 1901, 383.
148 STEAM JENNY Floor: 1st Manufacturer: Unknown but details for one manufactured by Wm and J.G. Greey is included below. Purpose: The Steam Jenny tempers the wheat. Details: Dry grain powders going through the rollers. This is acceptable when creating whole-wheat flour.368 However, when a miller is making pastry flour it is important to separate the bran from the endosperm. Conditioning the wheat is this way also helps to create some uniformity in the wheat.369 Adding moisture allows the bran to flake off rather than “fly” and “chip.”370 The price of one from the Greey Company was $95. Mr. Clarkson believed the Jenny to have been added around 1916.371 The Steam Jenny also heated the office area the only room that had heat in order to limit possibilities of fire. Citation: Wm. & J.G. Greey, Illustrated General Catalogue of Mill Machinery and Supplies (Toronto: 1888), 136. Wm. & J.G. Greey, Illustrated General Catalogue of Mill Machinery and Supplies (Toronto: 1901), 226.
368 Frances Cardwell, Run of the Mill, Film 30:10 369 Greey, Catalogue 1901, 162. 370 Bradfield, Wheat and the Flour Mill, 99. 371 Appendix Fg: Sheiliagh Grant, ORCA, Lang Archives
149
The chamber the grain would pass through.
150 CYCLONE VACUUM Floor: 2 Manufacturer: Unknown Purpose: The collector keeps the air in the mill clean and collects very fine flour that would be sold as chicken scratch. Details: The cyclone drum would be sucking dust and small seeds from the air around the separator (cleaner). Instructions for setting up the vacuum suggests that it should be very close to the machine that it would be drawing from and avoid as much turning as possible.372 The machine was water driven. This machine was added after the fire but not immediately and would have had spouting on the first floor to bag the dust. Before the cyclone dust collector was added any dust would be sent up to the dust room on the 3rd floor using an unknown machine. Dust rooms were set up using an open or loose woven cloth such as muslin or cheesecloth.373 Effective dust rooms were difficult to set up as any small holes or vents could prevent the dust from settling and spread it throughout the mill or even to the roof.374 This explains why the cyclone vacuum was adopted. In a large mill the room needed to be cleaned once a week.375
Cyclone vent exiting through the window.
372 Greey, Catalogue 1901, 131. 373 B.W. Derrick, Practical Milling (Chicago: National Miller, 1924), 292. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89047337332;view=1up;seq=8 374 Derrick, Practical Milling, 292. 375 Derrick, Practical Milling, 292.
151
Third floor dust room where flour dust would have been directed.
152 VELOCITY MIDDLINGS PURIFIER Floor: 2nd Manufacturer: Wm. And J.G. Greey Purpose: This machine separated the less desirable grain from the fine flour. Details: Once grain had been processed millers were left with middlings or grain that contained “the hard glutinous and protein-rich part of the kernel.”376 Multiple grindings could get a second grade quality of flour out of this grain. The middlings were likely saved until the finest flour had gone through and then reground.377 The “Velocity” middlings purifier was apparently very popular in both roller mills and mills using millstones.378 This machine has fine silk inside. Apparently one of these large contraptions was even shipped out to a small mill on Manitoulin Island.379 The least expensive model was $160. Citation: Wm. & J.G. Greey, Illustrated General Catalogue of Mill Machinery and Supplies (Toronto: 1888), 33.
376 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 104. 377 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 107. 378 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 211. 379 Leung, Grist and Flour Mills, 211.
153 ELEVATOR FLOUR BOLT Floor: 3 Manufacturer: Geo. T. Smith M.P.Co. Inter Purpose: This would be used for sifting flour and separating the good flour from pieces of flour that need to be re-ground. This machine would have silk on its ribs. Horsehair brushes would clean the silk as it when around. This prevented the flour from sticking to the silk when it was warm. Details: A bolter does the work of sifting or separating the fine and coarse flour.
154 IMPROVED SCALPER Floor: 3 Manufacturer: Wm & J.G. Greey Toronto On. Purpose: This machine separates the fine flour from coarse flour that needed to be ground a second time. It is currently set up to grind for whole-wheat flour and so the sifters are made of wire mesh. Details: Originally millers tried centrifugal and reel scalpers however they were too rough on the grain. So reciprocating and rotary scalpers were used. Millers found that they were “gentler” and that the bran rose to the top while flour sank preventing contamination.380 The cloth in the original scalper needed to fit like “a glove” not forced but “snug and smooth without wrinkling.”381 Brushes were not necessary on this machine because of the shape.382 A similar model is found in the 1917 Catalogue for the lowest price of $160.383 Catalogue: Wm. & J.G. Greey, Catalogue D7 Grain Choppers, Oat Crushing Rolls and Feed Mill Machinery (Toronto: 1917), 67.
380 Bradfield, Wheat and the Flour Mill, 111. 381 B.W. Dedrick, Practical Milling, 179. 382 Frances Cardwell Interview, with Victoria Veenstra July 11, 2016 383 Wm. & J.G. Greey, Catalogue 1917, D7 Grain Choppers, Oat Crushing Rolls and Feed Mill Machinery (Toronto: 1917), 67.
155 SCALPER DRESSER Floor: 3 Manufacturer: Wm & J.G. Greey Purpose: This would be used for sifting flour and separating the good flour from pieces of grain that need to be re-milled. Details: This model was advertised as being able to sift gently and not to cause damage to the silk cloth. It was also adjustable which allowed the miller to sift for exactly the product and type of wheat they were using.384 The least expensive model was $130.385 The wooden auger on top would have been in the bottom of this machine but also in the bottom of the working improved scalper to carry the completed flour toward the packer.386 The wooden auger also prevented friction and sparks. It was easy to replace the wooden teeth in this auger.
384 Greey, Catalogue 1901, 109. 385 Greey, Catalogue 1901, 108. 386 Frances Cardwell Interview, with Victoria Veenstra July 11, 2016
156 SIFTER (STRATFORD) Floor: 3 Manufacturer: No. 186 Stratford MBC Co. Universal Belter [May 26th 1896] Purpose: This sifter sifts for white flour separating fine and coarse flour. Details: The sifter would have agitated left and right. The flour would travel in a spiral allowing the best flour to travel to the bottom white the larger bits remained at the top. This sifter uses silk screens to get the finest flour. The silk screen needs to be stretched taut.387 It was not a popular model, as any holes in the screens would allow the larger bits of flour to skip a number of sifting steps. This sifter is likely original as the holes in the floor match. There are no brushes in this sifter so small wooden pegs were added to the trays in order to help the flour to sift through the screens.
Note the wooden pegs inside screen to help move the flour instead of brushes.
387 Practical Milling B.W. Dedrick 180. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89047337332;view=1up;seq=184
157 STORAGE Floor: 3 Manufacturer: Unknown Purpose: This device directs the grain to various storage bins. Storage could have been on both the 2nd and 3rd floor. Details: Grain was originally stored in the mill or a warehouse. It was often spread out or kept in shallow bins.388 Modern grain is typically stored in silos.389
388 Bradfield, Wheat and the Flour Mill, 45. 389 Bradfield, Wheat and the Flour Mill, 48.
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166 Bibliography
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177