Sentinels of hope:
Mills of the Niagara Escarpment
By John Bacher
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The Grist Mill at Balls Falls. Photo courtesy of the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority.
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Except for such rare situations as that provided by Niagara Falls, where the massive flow of the Great Lakes can be harnessed for water power, mills in the Niagara Frontier were vulnerable to ecological abuse. The streams needed to power them tend to dry up after more than half of their watersheds are stripped of trees. But such negative ecological impact was rare in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The early mills tended to be located alongside waterfalls at the crest of the Niagara escarpment. Here they did not create new barriers to the movement of fish, notably the Atlantic salmon swimming out of Lake Ontario to tributary streams—mainstays of the local economy that since have been wiped out.
While there were abuses of native rights in the late eighteenth century, the conduct on both sides of the border was quite honorable in comparison with what was yet to come. The Iroquois on either side were important allies of both the crown and the new American Republic. Most of Buffalo and all of Grand Island were a Seneca Indian reservation in this era.
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The Morningstar Mill in Canada.
Photo by Michael DeGasperis. |
Mill owners facing disaster from drying streams, such as William Hamilton Meritt, became critical figures in the development of artificial waterways with great negative ecological impacts such as the Welland and Erie canals. The new canals unleashed a new set of environmental problems that compounded earlier deforestation. By the 1850s the Atlantic salmon would vanish from Lake Ontario, a harbinger of the subsequent demise of other species such as the blue walleye, wild turkey, elk, and passenger pigeon.
Mill owners tended to be men of high principles. They were frequently forced to endure great hardship because of the principles they would apply in this time of great conflict that saw Canada and the United States emerge as separate nations. During the American Revolution, one mill owner, Adam Chrysler, ordered Indians to burn his grist mill to keep it out of the hands of the American revolutionaries. Mill owners loyal to the new republic throughout upper New York State had to be guarded by U.S. troops to stop the frequently effective raids on them by the loyalist Royal Greens.
While mills tended to be ecologically innocent, they were often centers of battle. St. David’s, in Ontario, whose seven water mills made it the industrial hub of Canada, was burned to the ground by American troops in the War of 1812. Williamsville (formerly named Williams Mill, both names taken from mill owner Jonas Williams) became a center of refuge during the Canadian retaliatory burning that destroyed Buffalo. During the War of 1812 some 6,000 U.S. army troops were stationed around the Williamsville Water Mill. Built in 1811, it still stands intact, although not working, since it was sold to the town of Williamsville two years ago by its last miller-owner.
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The Morningstar Mill in Canada.
Photo by Michael DeGasperis. |
Rochester, its mills strategically well situated above the powerful Great Falls of the Genesee River, was the most important city in Lake Ontario’s watershed during this period. It was then known as the Flour City. Food in this time was the key to the economy, not automobiles. While some of Rochester’s mill buildings are static museums and bars, not one is still in working order.
Morningstar
Only one water mill now remains in operation along the once busy factory belt along the Niagara escarpment between Hamilton and Rochester: the Morningstar Mill. The Morningstars emigrated to Canada from Pennsylvania as refugees. During the revolution the family sank their mill equipment into a river to hide it before fleeing to Canada. After the war it was successfully returned with the help of a sympathetic Quaker. After Black Creek, which had powered their family’s mills following the American Revolution, dried up, the Morningstars moved to St. Catharines. Here, right above DeCew Falls, they took advantage of the excellent water flow provided by the peculiar configuration of the St. Catharines Water Works and the Welland Canal.
An avid reader of Popular Mechanics, Wilson Morningstar had astonishing inventive genius. His was the first turbine-driven mill in Ontario, far more efficient than the earlier water wheel models. Faced with the unwillingness of the nearby De Cew electrical generating plant to provide him electrical power for lighting, he powered his own electric generator using the waters of Beaverdams Creek.
Some of Wilson Morningstar’s inventive genius has been transmitted to the dedicated volunteers who form the Friends of the Morningstar Mill. Since 1994, they have effectively run the mill as a living museum for its present owner, the city of St. Catharines. Under the inspired leadership of Gary Konkle, a retired stationary engineer who had been involved in an antique power association, the Friends reconstructed the shed that once protected the mill’s turbine but had since fallen into the Beaverdams Gorge. The Friends also refurbished and restored the turbine shaft and gears to working order. Damage here had caused the mill to suddenly be stilled a few months after Wilson Morningstar’s death in 1933.
The restorers of ancient mills have long had a keen interest in protection of the environment. This is why water mills tend to be a key feature of the historic villages in Ontario established by conservation authorities. A key element of their mandate is to reverse the deforestation that by the mid-nineteenth century caused most mills in southwestern Ontario to suddenly grind to a halt.
Balls Falls
The second property acquisition by the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority following its creation in 1959 was the ghost town of Balls Falls. The former water-powered mill was brought back into production here to grind grain into flour again for its annual Pioneer Days festival which attracts thousands of visitors. The Balls Falls mill was restored to work with electricity and not water, because during the Thanksgiving weekend that the mill operates, the stream that once powered the mill, Twenty Mile Creek, is totally dry. The water wheel that powered this mill 159 years ago is still on display in the mill’s basement.
The volunteers who seek to get the Williamsville Water Mill back to grinding apples for cider are motivated by high ideals similar to those of the founders of Ontario’s conservation authorities. They see their efforts as serving a broader purpose to enhance the environment and encourage ecotourism. A Williamsville Mill Restoration Committee plans to follow in Konkle’s footsteps to get a water mill operating again and has secured New York State funding for repairs.
In his Secret Places: Scenic Treasures of Western New York and Southern Ontario, author Bruce Kershner notes how the protection of Glen Falls and the adjacent Williamsville Water Mill is a happy exception to the American pattern of neglecting the Niagara Escarpment. He notes that it “took a vigorous citizens’ campaign to overcome the opposition of the town board” to create Glen Falls park in the 1970s, and that it was accomplished only through a referendum victory in 1973.
While the water mills of the War of 1812 symbolized war and division, now they stand for concepts of ecotourism, reforestation, green technologies, and respect for the shared heritage among citizens today on both sides of the border.
John Bacher is an activist and writer living in St. Catharines.
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