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CREDIT: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
HISTORY
No-one has pinpointed an actual date when the Old Mill was built other than to say it was about 1846. From then to 1892, it would seem the flour milling industry in Caledonia was big business but not without competition across the river or financial difficulty. Caledonia founder Ranald McKinnon’s milling enterprises on the Northside by 1850 comprised a sawmill, flour mill, and woollen mill. This Northside area of mill was known to be within the Village of Oneida. James Little’s Southside mill was known to be within the Village of Sunnyside.[MillingCo 1]
Doomed by fire and daunted by flood, McKinnon had his share of bad luck with mills. His sawmill, many times damaged by ice and shifted off its location by the 1861 flood, lasted until it burned in January 1942. The 1844 flour mill was rebuilt twice following fires in 1862 and 1876 and remained until Sept. 6, 1969 when fire struck again for the last time. The 1848 woollen mill burned and was rebuilt in 1863 but was left down after claimed arson took it in 1881, two years following McKinnon’s death.[1] The Southside mill, left free from fire and flood, withstood and still remains over 150 years later.
Our concentration on the flour mills only is where the claimed big milling business of the 1860 and 70’s took place. Up to then the two flour mills can only be presumed to have either been rented or managed for Little and McKinnon. Daniel McQuarrie was in partnership with McKinnon in the Northside mill from 1865 to 1869. This partnership came to a close and McQuarrie and James Thorburn bought the Southside mill known as Balmoral Mills, renaming it Grand River Mills.
In 1873 William Munro joined McQuarrie and Thorburn to buy out McKinnon’s flour milling business. Thus, the trio had the successful flour business in Caledonia all to themselves. The fire that required rebuilding of the Northside mill in 1876 didn’t hold them back. The partnership was said to have the largest dealers in grain in the County of Haldimand.
The Haldimand Atlas of 1877 also states they were turning out 1500 barrels weekly, paying out in cash a half million dollars annually, shipping mostly to Montreal where it was sold in the lower provinces of the Dominion and Europe.
In 1877 they shipped 6000 barrels direct to Glasgow, Scotland. Employment to about 40 men added to the prosperity of the village.
The Caledonia Dam was registered to them under a “Bargain and Sale” from the Haldimand Navigation Company in 1875. Purchasing and improvements cost $5,000 which allowed them to furnish water power to McKinnon’s Woollen mill and a plaster mill.
They were anxious to secure the erection of some other manufacturing establishment to which they would furnish water power at a reasonable rate. Things seemed to be going very well for McQuarrie, Thorburn, and Munro, according to the 1877 atlas.
But in 1880 the golden years of the partnership came to an abrupt halt and they were declared bankrupt. One wonders what part the 1876 rebuilding of the Northside mill played in the financial difficulty, and or just how true the hype really was in the 1877 Haldimand Atlas account.
The Northside mill was taken over by Robert Shirra.
Credit Wikipedia
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