From Wheat to Strawberries: by Deborah Lerech

The cutting and clearing of the forests of the region had finally been completed in the 1840s and 1850s leaving few signs of the original landscape . This decline is demonstrated quite clearly in the 1871 Census. The amount of white pine had dropped to 4,486 cubic feet and red pine only produced 537 cubic feet of lumber. Even the famous Oakville oak had dropped to 5,870 cubic feet. This was a huge decline from only twenty years before when 6,840,000 cubic feet were milled at Oakville. And, although 939,000 staves were shipped out of Oakville, no masts were produced that year. ¹

In the early nineteenth century, clearing land and then establishing wheat fields was the long established method of farming. Settlers remained loyal to the European method of crop farming--planting several kinds of grains and legumes often in rotation with one another. This method, however, along with the accompanying deforestation, carried with it an environmental cost that was quickly becoming apparent. The clearing caused the disintegration of the forest's soil layer and with its removal, more rainwater ran off immediately, before it could percolate into the soil. Many springs and creeks "dried up entirely during the summer," and "rivers carried less water at this season than formerly ". ² The old way of farming and milling that had worked admirably well up until this point was in dire need of change--a change that was needed quickly if farming were to continue.

Although it seemed that the agricultural way of life was being threatened, there remained a growing desire in Upper Canada to get non-agricultural products to external markets by the cheapest and most expeditious method. This desire was felt most particularly by the "little groups of merchants and mill-owners and store-keepers in the villages and small towns along the lakes". ³ There was a need for speed and power that had previously been unnecessary and, by 1836, industrialisation began with power looms that were only initially making an appearance in Upper Canada. ⁴

William Chisholm intended industry to follow agrarian pursuits in Oakville as well. Although there is little written documentation of his intentions, there is much evidence in the succeeding years that weighs heavily in favour of his interest in manufacturing using power looms for processing and finishing woollen cloth. ⁵ To accommodate these aspirations the town of Oakville began planning a dam on the Sixteen at about the same time as the power looms started to appear. An early map of Oakville shows the dam and the mills it would facilitate before they were actually constructed. The dam was supposed "to extend from the head of Randall Street to approximately the foot of Rebecca Street". ⁶

Waterpower and the construction of this mill were of such importance to the increase of manufacture in the town that the Oakville Hydraulic Company was the "first company incorporated in the province of Upper Canada for the purpose of developing water power for manufacturing." In 1840, stock was sold in the amount of 800 shares at £25 each. Mortgages in the town at the time indicate that many townspeople may have taken money on their own houses and property to invest in the enterprise. ⁷ Unfortunately, according to Hazel Mathews, the depth of the Sixteen south of the loop in the township proper made the building of a dam impossible. After large amounts of money and several years of labour had been given to the project it was abandoned. ⁸ In the 1950s, also according to Mathews, the only remaining evidence of the enterprise was the "finger of land reaching out from the foot of the east bank to the edge of the water of the Sixteen, which had been called the Old Dam until the 1880s where there was a marsh and it had been covered with soil and made into Busby Park. ⁹

In spite of the necessity to abandon waterpower in Oakville the desire to manufacture was still very much present in the business community. With the increasing turn to manufacture as represented in the census records ¹⁰ in lieu of the old agricultural staple, and water power on the decline, steam power took over. And although there may have been more steam powered mills and factories earlier on, steam power as an indication of commercial mills, was not systematically reported in the county until the 1861 Census. ¹¹

1851-52	1861-62	1871-72
16 gristmills*	6 gristmills	11 gristmills
60 sawmills†	36 sawmills‡	45 sawmills**
6 woollen mills (1 in Trafalgar)	2 woollen mills	none
1 distillery (in Trafalgar)	2 breweries	2 breweries
8 tanneries (2 in Trafalgar)	8 tanneries	4 tanneries
5 foundries (3 in Trafalgar)	2 foundries	3 foundries
12 other factories	18 other factories	33 other factories

* Trafalgar Twp.: 4 total, 1 steam power, 3 water power †Trafalgar Twp.: 17 total, 2 steam power, 15 water power ‡ Halton County: 16 steam power, 20 water power **No figures for steam or water power are recorded in the 1871 Census ¹²

As the preceding figures for Halton County indicate, the number of mills fluctuated between 1851 and 1871. Steam engines were common after 1851 but Trafalgar Township did not fully adopt steampower for another decade. This was not an unusual occurrence since water power was still overwhelmingly used to drive machinery well into the second half of the nineteenth century. One economic historian, Douglas McCalla, has determined that forty-nine percent of urban industry was steam powered, 45% water powered and 5% used a combination of both. ¹³ Oakville and Trafalgar's industry, being somewhat more rural than that of Kingston or Toronto in the 1870s, lagged somewhat behind these numbers. It would not be long, however, before these numbers would be up to par with their urban counterparts as the water levels of the Sixteen continued to decline. In only a few years the manufacture of secondary goods in Oakville would surpass the agriculture of the area. Much of this development would be due to the early forays into steam power in the 1850s.

Bibliography
Canada Census, 1870-71, Ottawa: I.B. Taylor, 1876
Census of the Canadas for 1851-52, Quebec City: John Lovell, 1854
Craig, Gerald M., Upper Canada, the Formative Years, 1784-1841, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1963
Mathews, Hazel C., Oakville and the Sixteen: The History of an Ontario Port, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1953
McCalla, Douglas, Planting the Province: The Economic History of Upper Canada, 1784-1870, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993
Wood, David, ed., Perspectives on Landscape and Settlement in Nineteenth Century Ontario, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1975

Footnotes

1. Census of the Canadas for 1851-52, (Quebec City: John Lovell, 1854) pp. 194-199; Canada Census, 1870-71, (Ottawa: I.B. Taylor, 1876, Vols. 3),pp. 3-5, 226-227
2. David Wood, ed., Perspectives on Landscape and Settlement in Nineteenth Century Ontario, (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1975) p. 67
3. Gerald M. Craig, Upper Canada, the Formative Years, 1784-1841, p. 149
4. Hazel C. Mathews, Oakville and the Sixteen: The History of an Ontario Port, pp. 86-87, 88-89
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid., pp. 89-90
8. Hazel C. Mathews, Oakville and the Sixteen: The History of an Ontario Port, pp. 89-90
9. Ibid.
10. Canada Census, 1870-71, (Ottawa: I.B. Taylor, 1876 Vol. 4), pp. 198, 271; Vol. 3 pp. 320-321, 330-331, 340-341, 360-361, 400-401
11. Douglas McCalla, Planting the Province: The Economic History of Upper Canada, 1784-1870, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993) p. 93
12. Census of the Canadas for 1851-52, (Quebec City: John Lovell, 1854) pp. 194-199; Canada Census, 1870-71, (Ottawa: I.B. Taylor, 1876, Vols. 3 & 4), Vol. 4. pp. 198, 271; Vol. 3 pp. 320-321, 330-331, 340-341, 360-361, 400-401
13. Douglas McCalla, Planting the Province: The Economic History of Upper Canada, 1784-1870, pp. 234-235