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Ad Rates / Articles / Classified Ads / Editorial / Home / Links / Showtime   New hope for 1800s Hope Mill    List Ray Yurkowski Next   Hope Mill an historical gem for Keene, Ontario By Ray Yurkowski Hope Mill, at Keene, Ontario, stands as a testament to what volunteers can achieve in preserving a piece of our history.   The mill, built on the bank of the Indian River in the early 1800s, remains at the original site. After 130 years of continuous family ownership, Hope Mill was sold in 1966 to the Otonabee Region Conservation Authority. After extensive repairs to the property, the mill opened in 1972 as a heritage demonstration site until 1993, when the mill was forced to close because of funding cuts.   Retired General Electric engineer, Bob Rehder recalls having a look at the place in 1999.   “It was just like looking at a graveyard,” he said. “I peeked in the windows and it was a dead site. It came to a choice; either tear the place down for safety reasons, or fix it up. We decided to fix it up. We've been working at it now for 10 years.”   Beginning in 2001, the Hope Mill Restoration Volunteers have contributed more than 2,000 hours per year bringing the building and machinery back to life and in June 2006, the mill again officially opened as a heritage demonstration site. But this time, everything works and the entire operation is powered by water, from the 48-inch head saw upstairs to the downstairs woodshop.   It was quite an overhaul that involved a lot structural work including installing new columns and beams as well as replacing the entire foundation.   Rehder points to a few massive-sized beams that were used in the repair.   “They’re second-hand beams,” he said with a grin. “They were old in 1892. We don't think most of the machinery has run since 1966 because the day we tried to start it, everything was going backwards.   "It was there for people to look at but not use. But there's something about a machine that’s moving that, to me, is alive. When we cut the first log here, all I could yell was ‘It’s alive.’”   William Lang built the mill in the mid-1830s. The lower level housed the mill operation and the second floor, an area of 850 square feet, was where Lang lived with his wife and seven children.   “We know at least four of the children were born here,” says Hope Mill archivist and historian Kathryn Campbell.   She compares the Lang family penthouse with the accommodations of most of the area pioneers.   “The basic pioneer cabin was 350 square feet along with a dirt floor and leaky roof,” she said. “So, quite literally, the Langs were high and dry and they had much more space. Comparatively s p e a k i n g, much better c o n d i t i o n s than most of the early pioneers.”   The family lived over the mill for 12 years before building a stone house across the road and moving there in 1848. Mill sites were recognized very early on as a valuable piece of real estate says Campbell.   “In the original surveys of the township, mill sites were marked. And, they always seemed to fall into the hands of people that had a little bit more influence than others because they were valuable as a business location,” she explained.     “What we have here is William coming here in 1832 to put in a carding and fulling mill. There was already a saw mill at Lang in 1825 and a grist mill came in 1846. So, the three mills in very short order came together to create that basic unit they need for a community.”   Local sheep farmers quickly saw the advantage of the mill’s mechanization speeding up the process of carding, taking the wool from raw, clean fleece to being ready for the spinning wheel. From spinning, the fabric was either knitted or woven into woolen cloth.   Hand-carding, using a wire brush, is a very time consuming process.   “Rather than do it by hand, they could bring it here to get their wool carded,” said Campbell. “They charged six cents a pound. Lang charged by the half-pound and carried them on account as most millers were also bankers.   "In the 1860s there were several currencies still in the region. William Lang would extend credit because he could afford to, collecting as much as five years later and, of course, charging interest as he went.   “We have records from 1867 to 1872 showing an established clientele of about 400 families bringing their wool here from some distance,” added Campbell. “Of those families, 95 per cent had half a dozen sheep judging from the amount of wool they were bringing in. The rest were obviously in the business, bringing in hundreds of pounds of wool. They would have had their wool prepared and taken it to Peterborough where there was quite an advanced wool industry. Some were even exporting wool out of the region to Britain.”   Wool was brought to the mill in May through June for carding, taken home for spinning or weaving then brought back in September through December for fulling. Knowing the 100 per cent wool cloth would shrink, it was purposely done beforehand.   “That’s what fulling is,” explained Campbell. “Again, it could be done by hand but it was also a very slow process. Basically, the wool fabric was put into a big vat and water-powered mallets pounded it for some period of time to shrink it up as tight as possible.   "The fabric lost about a third of its surface in the process and, once it was done, would never shrink again. Fulled cloth was very much valued for outer garments. It was a very tight, almost windproof, almost waterproof garment. It was used for men’s pants and jackets.”   The young ladies were very important in the entire process, said Campbell.   “A good young lady was worth her meal ticket to be able to card, spin, weave and knit. We've even got records showing how it was worthwhile to make a good pair of socks and walk them into Peterborough to sell them.”   Carding and fulling continued at the location until 1892 but when bigger mills opened at Peterborough, business fell off. By then though, the lumber trade had taken hold and the mill was as busy as ever. According to records, the mill was fully converted into a sawmill by 1896.   When Lang retired in 1873, he leased the mill for $400 a year to his son-in-law, Richard Hope, husband of Lang’s oldest daughter, Jane, apparently the favourite of the children.   “The revenue for the mill at that time was about $350 per year so the mill itself wasn't going to pay the cost of the lease,” said Campbell. “But Richard was also a master carpenter and he had been building before he came into his father-in-law’s business so he came in with the idea of wood.   "He was the one who persuaded Lang to switch the mill over into a sawmill. His father-in-law wasn't convinced, but nonetheless, he made the switch.”   The mill was a demand-driven business says Campbell and, throughout the years, the operation offered the services of sidebusinesses such as a small grist mill and shingle-making as well as installing a lathe.   “They were always thinking about those add-on things and shifted with the community needs,” she said.   Campbell, who grew up in the area, now lives in the original stone house built for Lang family says her interest was piqued when she watched the volunteers as they started working on what she considers as her mill.   “It’s hard to explain the feeling going from a building that’s quietly deteriorating to one that makes all that noise,” she said. “Because it's not noise to us, it's music.   “At first, we were just demonstrating. Then we realized we did have a saw capacity in thinking about how to make the mill more or less self-sufficient. We do cut to order. I wouldn't say we're in the wood business but we can pay for the cost of the logs."   Hope Mill photographs by Ray Yurkowski 1 - 19th century woodworking tools from Joseph P. Sharp collection   2 - Logs still float in the mill pond decades after heavy milling   3 - A 1901 hand-drill press converted to water-power drill     Return to top of page   This Is Livin' Publishing © 2010 581 8th Line West, RR1 Hastings, ON, K0L 1Y0 Phone/Fax: 705-696-1833   webmaster