This house and lot, like the nearby property at 351 Rock Chapel Road is located on part of the large grant of 400 acres that was awarded to Moses Morden on 27 November 1798, less than a year after the first survey of Flamborough was completed. Earlier in the decade, he had submitted his petition as being deserving of a land grant, stating that he had served with the loyalist New Jersey Volunteers until 1784, “when he was discharged, a veteran at the age of twenty”.
Moses Morden was awarded property that included the steep cuesta of the Niagara Escarpment and part of a swift flowing stream, now known as Borer’s Creek, that drops approximately 75 feet to join Hopkins Creek on its way to Coote’s Paradise. According to his will written on 1 November 1815, he left his property to his brothers and their children, which suggests that he had no wife or children. The will also mentions his sawmill on the creek, which is almost certainly the one that continued to exist in the community for over a hundred and forty years.
In 1865, management of the mill, that by this date had become known as Howell’s Saw Mill, was offered to an East Flamborough Township sawyer, John Borer. He accepted the position at Rock Chapel and six years later, purchased the property, building and equipment for $1,200. Born in Kent, England in 1824, he arrived in Canada in 1852, with his wife, Kezia Holmes and four children. The family first settled in Guelph, where two of their children died but it appears they moved soon after, for by 1861 they were recorded as living in Mountsberg, where John operated a small community sawmill.
Located above the Rock Chapel Falls, close to the old stone bridge and powered by a 24 foot overshot water wheel, the mill at Rock Chapel was never large, averaging about 2,000 board feet a year. Changes were made to the machinery in 1884 and production was tripled when the straight blade saw which only cut on the down stroke, was replaced with a circular saw driven by a turbine water wheel. This new machinery was the cause of a terrible tragedy in 1888. William, one of John’s sons who worked in the mill, fell on the huge saw which tore into his body before he could be rescued. A family story recounts that he managed to walk back to the house, where he died from his wounds the next day.
The low and unreliable water levels in Borer’s Creek became a serious problem during the first decade of the twentieth century. Steam power was introduced about 1912 which allowed the mill to operate year round. By 1949 it was no longer a profitable business, so the machinery was dismantled and moved to the Borer property where it continued in use for a few more years. Long-time Rock Chapel resident, Jack Lyons recalled the Borer’s Mill of his childhood as “…a mill that had no roof and was powered by a steam engine and later by a tractor…the sawdust from the mill was thrown down the hillside into the gully of Borer’s Falls. It was so thick that we could slide down it year round.” From its beginnings under Moses Morden during the last decade of the eighteenth century to its demise in the 1950s, the mill was certainly one of the longest continuously operated sawmills in Ontario.
John Borer Sr.’s other sons, George and John Jr. became prominent members of the Rock Chapel community. George, the eldest son went into business as a blacksmith and owned a two-storey building that stood at the corner of the Valley Road and Rock Chapel Road were carriages, buggies, sleighs, ploughs and farm implement were made. John Jr. had many interests. He worked with his brother for a number of years, during which time, he and Isaac P. Case took First Prize at the Provincial Trial of Implements at Paris, Ontario on 19 July 1871 for Borer’s Improved Patent on Ostram & Hall’s Cultivator. He married Annie Pearson from Valley Road and was the first member of the family to live in the house. He farmed the Borer property that included a fine peach orchard and strawberry patch located on the protected south-facing slope of the escarpment. The farm produced the first crops in the area and supplied stores as far away as Guelph.
The present stone house, built by Edward Averill in the 1850s, was on the property when it was purchased by John Borer Sr. in 1871. Like many houses in the immediate area, it sits on bed rock and was built from locally quarried stone. During the ownership of the house by five successive generations of the Borer family, its exterior has altered little so that it is now a Rock Chapel landmark.
© The Waterdown-East Flamborough Heritage Society 2009, 2024.
