Empire Woollen Mill – Workers Homesite Hunt

[ANTIQUARIAN]

Late last fall, I received permission from the landowner to detect this c1840 home site, l detected here on Friday and Sunday last week. This is the site in the green rectangle on the c1870. Originally, there were at least three buildings here that housed the workers who worked at the Empire Woollen Mill just up the road.

Empire Mill History
West of Columbus, Ontario on a branch of the Oshawa Creek at the SE corner of Thornton Rd. and Columbus Rd. existed the largest mill in the entire area. Here, in 1835, the impressive, four-storey woollen mills of Mathewson and Ratcliffe was operated by a crew of 50, which was much larger than the other mills that dotted the landscape. Men were brought in from Northern England to work the mill. They resided in a boarding home and small cottages in the area. (See a pic below that shows how the Empire Woollen Mill looked in 1883.)

In 1850, the company was sold to the Empire Mills Company. The area grew into a village that had a church, a store, a school, wooden sidewalks and by 1883, an electrical lighting system powered by the mill dam. It may have been the first of its kind in the entire area. When a major railway was built well west near Markham, ON the company moved. The old mill struggled under new ownership until 1890 when a flood washed out the dam. It was never rebuilt and the small mill village died. A few old century homes and two cemeteries from the era survive.

St. Paul’s Anglican Church stood next to the Empire Mill along with several houses, the church burned to the ground in the winter of 1922. Another church a half-mile west serviced the village as well, it was the Dryden Baptist Church. This c1840 wooden church was cut into sections and moved in the 1920s, it was pulled by a team of horses to a farm across the road from where the Empire mill was located. (See a pic below of the Dryden Baptist Church where it now resides.)

One of the first finds I made was a WWII button in the homeowner's front yard, when I showed it to the owner he said, "I've got something to show you." He then went into his house and came out with a WWII German-issued mess kit knife with a Swastika stamped on it. He told me, "the guy he bought the house from in the 1970s was a WWII vet and he had left the knife in the basement, so the button I found must've belonged to the former landowner." It's always a gratifying feeling when you make a find on a permission that the landowners can relate to. When I'm finished detecting here later this summer, I'm going to print a copy of the original map and affordably frame it with some of the relics I found here for the landowner. Some of the interesting finds I made here 3 — LC’s, an 1870 US ‘Shield’ Five Cent coin, a brass tag stamped ‘RIKER’, part of a horse rosette, pewter spoon bowl fragments, a c1897 clay pipe fragment celebrating Queen Victoria’s Jubilee and a glass perfume bottle.

Thanks very much for looking,
Dave

 

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[ANTIQUARIAN]

Hey AntiQ! Sorry, I missed this post. You know, I will never remember all of the history you give, but I do enjoy reading it. I am sure some of it sticks. LOL. Looks like you had a great hunt and I like how you connected with the land owner. Happy Hunting!

~ WD

No worries WD, we'd have to be on here 10 hrs a day to post to all of the new threads.
I usually just post to the people who I recognize that post to my threads.

You know me, I like to give as much historical background context to the finds I make... otherwise, they're 'just finds'.

Hope you and your family are all doing well,
Dave

 

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