Ontario's Historical Plaques
at ontarioplaques.com
Learn a little Ontario history as told through its plaques
Chaffey's Mills
Photo by Alan L Brown - Posted March, 2006
Photo from Google Street View ©2010 Google - Posted December, 2010
Plaque Location
The County of Leeds and Grenville
The Township of Rideau Lakes
At Chaffeys Locks, on the east side of the one-lane bridge
over the lock at the end of Road 9
Coordinates: N 44 34.755 W 76 19.209 |
Plaque Text
Prominent early millers in Eastern Ontario, Benjamin and Samuel Chaffey were born in Somerset, England and came to Upper Canada in 1816. After settling briefly in Perth they moved to Elizabethtown (Brockville) where they operated mercantile and milling ventures. Encouraged by local residents to establish mills along the Rideau River, they chose this location in 1820. Samuel settled here soon after, effecting many improvements to the site. By 1827 an extensive complex including a distillery and grist, saw, carding and fulling mills had been established. A small settlement known as Chaffey's Mills gradually developed. The mills were flooded during the building of the Rideau Canal (1826-32), but shipping and, later, tourism stimulated the continuous growth of the community of Chaffey's Lock.
Related Ontario plaque pages
The Rideau Waterway
Rideau Canal 1826-1832
More
Settlements
Here are the visitors' comments for this page.
Posted May 27, 2011
The plaque indicates that the mills were flooded. How does the mill building still existing (built in 1842; south of road, west side of the canal) fit into this? Is this the same structure?
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