An Enterprising Gentleman - Glimpses of the Past with Karen Webster

For villages and towns in 19th-century rural Ontario to thrive, it was necessary to have sawmills and grist mills. By 1882, only 10 years after the founding of Ainleyville, there were five mills operating in the village: three sawmills (two being run by steam and one by the middle branch of the Maitland River) and two flour mills. The most prominent name in the mill enterprises was that of William Vanstone.

 

Vanstone was born in Devonshire, England in 1833 and immigrated to Canada with his parents, Samuel and Mary Vanstone, settling in Colborne Township. He was the sixth of 11 children, several of whom also followed the milling trade.

 

Before arriving in Ainleyville, around 1859, William and Margaret (Johns) Vanstone and family lived in Egmondville, where their son, William Franklin (Frank), was born in 1856. It is likely that Vanstone had previously been involved with a mill in the Seaforth area.

 

Although merchants from Mitchell and Hamilton with the surnames of Fishleigh, Babb and McInnes “controlled potential mill properties and flooding rights”, they had not acted on these options and in 1859 William Vanstone built the first mill and a wooden dam to funnel the river water into a flume to power a water wheel. The flume was a man-made channel for water, which had walls above the surrounding terrain. The channeled water was forced to flow past a waterwheel, which, when turned, spun on an axle that was connected to the various pieces of milling equipment by pulleys and gears. This first mill that Vanstone built was three storeys high.

 

In November of 1866, an announcement in the Huron Signal, a Goderich newspaper, told of the dissolution of the partnership of William Vanstone and James Vanstone “brothers and millers and mill owners at Seaforth and Ainleyville, is this day dissolved by mutual consent. All promissory notes and book accounts due to the late partnership are in the hands of James Vanstone for collection. Mr. William Vanstone will be continuing the business in Ainleyville.” According to the 1880 United States census, both James Vanstone and another brother, Charles, were living in Saline, Missouri, and working as millers. As well, at one time or another, two other brothers, Richard and John, were also involved in the family’s milling operations.

 

William Vanstone prospered in the milling business, having both a flour mill and a sawmill. Any material that is made up of fine particles is subject to combustion, and flour mills were often the victim of fires. A mill fire in October of 1871 was the second that Vanstone suffered in Ainleyville, but it would not be the last. 

 

We are indebted to the Huron Expositor, of Seaforth, on Nov. 28, 1873 for a first-hand account of the mill that replaced the burnt-out structure. The new mill measured 40 by 60 feet, stood four storeys tall and cost $10,000 to build. In the basement was a “Smut Machine” that was capable of cleaning 100 bushels of grain an hour. Also in the basement were “Leffel Double Turbine” 48-inch waterwheels. These wheels generated 66 units of horsepower with an eight foot fall of water. These turbines were able to drive four runs of stone, each 48 inches wide, that were located on the ground floor of the building. Three of these double mill stones were in operation.  They consisted of two stones, one on top of the other that rotated in opposite directions, grinding the husks off the grain and producing flour. A packing machine was also located on this floor as were two hoppers with elevators attached; one for purchased grain and one for grist. Completing the floor were bins for bran and shorts as well as an office. 

 

The third floor contained a flour press through which the flour passed to the packer, as well as three extra-sized hoppers to supply wheat to the millstones. A machine to cool the flour was located on the fourth floor of the mill. 

 

Throughout the mill was a vast amount of shafting and belting that was arranged so that there was no danger of accidents. Ten thousand bushels of grain could be stored in the building. There was the ability of process “fully one hundred barrels of flour per day”. Adjacent to the flour mill was a sawmill that was 40 by 30 feet in size and two storeys high. It had a five-foot circular saw and an edging saw all powered by a Smith Turbine. This mill employed 10 men and cut one million board feet of lumber annually.

 

Unfortunately, fire again struck in September of 1883, when a blaze started in the engine room of the flour mill. The flour mill was completely destroyed, however, the lower part of the adjacent sawmill and a quantity of lumber were saved. 

 

In addition to the mills along the Maitland, Vanstone also built a substantial house next door in which mill owners throughout the years lived. It was sold by auction in 1972 but was not lived in for several years. In 1978, Machan House Movers of Mount Forest purchased the house and moved it to another location.

 

At various times, the mills were noted as being owned by William Vanstone, but being run by others with such names as Hawke, Hambly and Halstead. It seems that Vanstone also contracted, as William Vanstone and Son, to build the first skating rink in Brussels in 1885.

 

William Vanstone, one of Brussels’ first entrepreneurs, passed away in Goderich Township in 1890 and was buried in the Brussels Cemetery. The Vanstone monument, marking where several family members are interred, is one of the tallest in the cemetery.

 

Some material for this article was researched in the Huron County Digitized Newspaper Collection and Our Story: From Ainleyville to Brussels 1872-1997.