November 18, 2023

Lindsay has a lot of history and while there on a business trip I took a visit to the Old Mill Park to view the remains of the mill. This structure is nothing compared to what it used to be but it is still a prominent feature in downtown Lindsay and was highly instrumental in the development of the town. The original land grant for the site included Lots 20 and 21 in Concession 6 which had been set aside as a potential mill site during the surveying of Ops Township.

William Purdy had been operating a large mill in Vaughan which was destroyed in 1828 and he applied for the land grant at the future site of Lindsay. His plan was to start in 1829 and have the mill operational in 1831. When his dam was destroyed in flooding in the spring of 1831 he was set back a couple of years and the mill didn’t open until 1833. As the mill prospered, the community that grew up around the mill came to be known as Purdy’s Mills. Town lots were laid out in 1834 and other industries started to come to the area including blacksmiths, hotels and taverns and a carding mill. The mill dam backed up the water flow and created Lake Scugog which upset the property owners that got flooded out. It also created a lot of breeding ground for mosquitos and so after many useless protests to the government the locals took matters into their own hands in 1844 and destroyed the dam. The mill dam was rebuilt and starting in 1869 the mill was replaced with a stone structure on a new foundation. The image below from the Lindsay Archives shows the the mill around 1900 when it was at its peak of production.

Kent Street was laid out in 1840 and it started to fill up with commercial and residential properties. In 1844 Purdy sold the mill to Hiram Bigelow who operated it until 1861 when it was destroyed in a large fire. The fire burned 91 of the wooden buildings in town and was a major setback for the mill. It wasn’t replaced until a new stone structure was built in 1869. This is the current building whose lower floor is all that remains in Old Mill Park. The image below shows the old wooden door which is interesting because the vines that now grow inside the building have found their way through the cracks to grow up the outside of the building.

The mill was run by William Needler and Thomas Sadler until it was sold to the Flavelle Family in 1884. Starting in 1899 it was rebranded as the Flavelle Milling Company.

The company went through several restructuring activities in the 1910s and Flavelle Milling Company was part of a merger of eight mills in the 1920s. The mill saw its peak production in 1904 but by the mid 1920s it was closed.

It reopened in 1927 as Lindsay Distillery but this only lasted until 1930.

In 1946 it was opened again, this time as Henderson’s Chick Hatchery. This venture lasted until 1971 when the building was vacant again.

There was a proposal to repurpose the structure as an accommodation facility of some type but when a $100,000 fire broke out in 1978 it was the end of the useful life of the building.

The mill dam is still in place and the remains of the building have been owned by the town since 1981.

It was recommended that the building be demolished in 1986 but instead the town has paid to stabilize the remains by capping the walls with cement. There have been a series of proposals to save the structure and develop it into something of a historical nature including a museum.

The old mill is currently a popular place for wedding pictures and is the focal point of the park but it still waits to see what its ultimate destiny will be.

Google Maps link: Lindsay Mill

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