"In the early days the little stream (the east branch of the Don) that trickles down the Don Valley was a fair sized river that supplied power to run 21 mills from the head waters up in King Township to Todmorden. These mills were mostly small sawmills which disappeared from the scene once the local timber was cut. As far as I know there were only 2 flour and chopping mills on the river; one was Schmidt's Mill where Bayview Ave and Steeles Ave meet, which was later converted into an artists studio, the other was our mill (Grays)" Schmidt's Mill was later torn down when the intersection was widened in 1965.
Grays Mill was built by James Gray and William Gray who started building the mill in 1819. This was a 4 story building made of hand hewn log beams with wooden pegs and thick wide plank floors and the exterior was clad in yellow brick. William was 17, James was 28.
Before the mill would be operational, they'd have to dam the river to create a mill pond, and dig a mill race to carry the water to the water wheels. The dam was not far from the mill and William and Alex and the rest of the family would use the top edge of the dam as a bridge to cross the river.
James deeded the land with the mills to William and brother Alex in 1825. Alex operated a Saw Mill on the opposite side of the river until the lumber ran out about 1880.
"Grays Mill was operated by water power, with turbine water wheels. There were two sets of mill stones, one set for grinding feed for cattle and one for flour only. In that period all flour was whole wheat flour, there was no separation of bran and shorts."
Harold wrote that they had a long reel system for separating the bran and shorts to make white flour, but it was never used.
"The roller mill and steel plate chopper were used for grinding feed for cattle."
"Our mill was rated as a 40 barrel mill, that is, it could produce 40 barrels of flour in 24 hours. A barrel of flour consists of 196 pounds, which was packed into 24 1/2 pound and 49 pound paper bags. Flour for bakeries was packed in 98 pound jute sacks."
"In my grandfathers time there was not much money around, and a lot of the grinding was done by toll, that is, the miller took a share of 1/12th of the flour milled for his toll." The 1/12th was set by law.
"The Grays Mill flour, packaged under the name 'Wee MacGregor' was so popular that people from King township used to bring their grain for grinding at Gray's Mill. It was a long journey by horse and the wheat was usually strapped to logs on a sled for hauling. The trip was so long that people from far away places always spent the night at Gray's before returning home."
This possibly explains how some of the daughters and nieces of William Gray ended up marrying farmers from King township, and Osprey township.
"In the early days the only way for the Don people to get to Toronto (to the St. Lawrence Market) was by what is now Lawrence Avenue to Yonge St. and down Yonge. The farmers got together and gave sufficient land to open the Don Road to what was then the Plains Road, now called O'Connor Drive. The property given extended from O'Connor Drive to York Mills Road and was an independent road. I believe the road was built in 1835."
The original Gray's Mill (1819) is still standing, but was altered considerably after the property was sold to the Dunlops in 1917, to make Don Alda Farms, with huge additions and new exterior cladding to make the cattle barn and storage barn. In 1966, Harold Gray, received a letter from Lorna Gardner, a historian from Willowdale, who received permission from the manager of the Donalda Club to explore; that letter indicates that it is still 3 stories plus the attic, so most of the original structure is still there, hidden inside the newer structure.
I have to think that James Gray was a man with a plan. I'm not sure how much land James was initially granted; Harold's notes indicated that he thought James grant gave him about 1/2 the land in Don Mills, that seems a bit far fetched but they did eventually own about 860 acres and lease other land. Some day I'll have to make the trip to Ottawa to go to Library and Archives Canada to get more details.
Harold also said that James encouraged the brothers to emigrate and join him. The fact that James arrived in 1816 and got established enough to support William (age 15) who arrived in 1817; and Alex (age 15) and Janet (age 20) who arrived in 1819, and started construction on the mill by 1819 certainly indicates that he was a man with a mission. You don't just decide, let's build a flour mill. a sawmill and a distillery. He had to have done research to know what was required, and that had to be a factor in his choice of land on the Don. Not to mention that he's a new settler, living in a single room log cabin or shanty (not much difference except for the roof), with land to clear and crops to grow. From a practical viewpoint, I imagine that he built the sawmill first, because they were going to need a lot of planks.
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