KAWARTHA LAKES-The Lindsay lock was among the first structures to be started on what would eventually become the Trent-Severn Waterway. When work began in 1837, the re-creation of the region into an agricultural landscape was still in its infancy and much local development was highly speculative. Investors were snapping up thousands of acres of land in the hopes that thousands of immigrants would come to the region so tracts could be resold at a profit. William Purdy constructed saw and grist mills (near the present-day intersection of Georgian and Ridout Streets) that were operational by October 1833, anticipating that a town would develop to make them profitable. A few years later, work began on the Lindsay lock to accommodate steamships that did not yet exist.
When William Purday applied to the Crown to construct saw and grist mills in 1829, he mentioned plans to build a twelve- or fourteen-foot-high dam. The Crown made the unusual step of absolving him from liability for damages caused by flooding—did they actually think through the implications of what they were agreeing to? When Purdy did build the dam, the pond it created took four months to fill with water and in the process flooded approximately 11,000 acres, particularly in the vicinity of Lake Scugog. Immigrants watched with horror as the waters crept higher, flooding their fields and homes. It turned shorelines into bays—sometimes just the roofs of houses could be seen above the water. Debris floated out of swamps, accumulating as floating islands. At the time, malaria was endemic in Upper Canada, which was exacerbated by this giant mill pond of stagnant water, providing plenty of mosquito habitat. As local residents were dying and it seemed that Purdy was not responding to their plight, there were many people who were very angry at Purdy and his mill dam.
Since the Crown had authorized a mill dam to be built at such destructive proportions, colonial officials faced a difficult political situation. As he was surveying the proposed waterway linking the Bay of Quinte and Lake Huron in 1836, N.H. Baird was urgently asked to examine the situation at Purdy’s Mills. He suggested moving the dam downstream to be below the rapids, instead of above it, which would allow the mill to still have enough head of water to operate, while reducing the flooding along the Scugog River and Lake Scugog. He proposed building a wooden lock beside the dam, which he expected would link Lake Scugog with the proposed waterway.
Baird’s proposal was accepted and Homer Hecox was contracted to build the lock at a cost of $12,500. He started work right away, felling trees and hauling the timbers out of the bush in 1837, as the painstaking excavation of the lock began. It was the era of manual excavation, where holes had to bored in rock with a chisel and hammer to be filled with black powder. Construction continued through 1838, but the following year, he “failed and left the country” because he was not being paid regularly for the work done—the lock was being built in the midst of a financial crisis. While Hecox was working on the new dam and lock in 1838, enraged settlers affected by Purdy’s dam rose and destroyed it, but it was rebuilt—Purdy had the right to maintain the dam at its excessive height.
This story is part of our partnership with Maryboro Lodge, The Fenelon Falls Museum and was written by Glenn Walker.
If you want to make a donation to the museum, you can e-transfer to: [email protected] or mail a cheque to :
Maryboro Lodge Museum
Box 179
50 Oak Street
Fenelon Falls, ON
K0M 1N0
