The northern part of East Flamborough Township, the Mountsberg area, was slowly settled during the 1840s and 1850s. This area consists of “rolling” countryside with noticeable hills and valleys, and is crossed by two creeks, the Twelve-Mile Creek and Bronte Creek. If the early pioneers didn’t know before they came, they soon found out that this part of the township had stones, big and little. The hills and valleys of Mountsberg were carved by a glacier that cut a hole in the Niagara Escarpment between Rattlesnake Point and Mount Nemo, and scattered stones far and wide. Much of the lowest land is quite poor and not workable, usually consisting of craggy bedrock, stones, swamp and some marsh, and so was left by the early settlers as wood-lots. Such an area is Lot 5, Concession 13, that has become known as “The McCrae Place”.
In 1850, when this property was assessed, the land was still uncleared, and probably being used by the owners, McLean and Clark as a source of timber for their water-powered sawmill that they were operating on the Twelve-Mile Creek near the 14th Concession. The actual deed to the property, that had originally been granted in 1817 to the four brothers and heirs of General Sir Isaac Brock, was not obtained by George Clark until 1855. Once the deed was in his possession, he immediately sold off the timber rights of the 200 acres to John Thompson and Thomas McCrae. Within a couple of years, these two men had formed Thompson, McCrae and Company, and were operating two sawmills, one water-power and one steam. In 1859, Thomas McCrae bought out his partner, and the property passed into the ownership of the McCrae family where it was to remain for three-quarters of a century.
Thomas McCrae (1820-1892) was born in Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland, and came to Canada as a young man in 1841. After a stay of less than a year, he returned home to Scotland and married. Seven years later, accompanied by his wife, two small children and his parents, Thomas McCrae returned to Canada, and settled in Guelph, where he found work as a book-keeper. An industrious worker, he quickly established himself, and founded the first lumber yard in 1853. To supply the lumber requirements of the growing town, he went into partnership with John Thompson, purchased the East Flamborough property, and set up a sawmill company. Within a brief period of time, he assumed control of both the company and property, and the area of the sawmill became known as the McCrae Place. During its few years of operation, the site was a bustling place, one of the few industrial areas in the northern part of the township.
The sawmill complex consisted of the main mill building, several small houses for the twenty of more employees and stables for the horses. The two mills turned out the lumber for all the stores on Lower Wyndham Street in Guelph, for the Market House, and most of the principal buildings that were erected in Guelph during the next decade. Ownership to the timber rights on Lot 1, Concession 12, provided the sawmills wil access to an excellent stand of pine, some of which became ship masts. The people of Mountsberg were also served by the mill. Many of them hauled their own logs to be sawn, as they gradually cleared their land, and replaced crude log cabins with frame and stone houses.
The 1861 Census reveals that William Moffat was the Superintendent at the complex, with 20 employees on the site, two of whom were women, probably cooks, five were married, and only two were over 30 years of age. Most of the workers were seasonal, many only staying a year or so, and almost none from the established Mountsberg families. By the beginning of the next decade, pine, for which the demand was the greatest, gave out, and lumbering came to a close. The clearing of the land in the northwest section of the lot continues, but the supply was inadequate for the mill and over the years, the many buildings on the property gradually disappeared. The unused steam sawmill stood for a few years, but was gone by the 1890s, the stables, and even the worker’s houses, although two, one log and one frame were recorded as still standing in 1917.
Thoms McCrae and his wife, Jane Campbell never lived in East Flamborough, their family home being a farm, south of Guelph. Their adult children, David (1845-1930), Margaret (1847-?), William (1853-1930), and Jane (c.1855-1935) succeeded to the property on the death of their father in 1892. William had assumed the responsibility for McCrae Place many years before this, due to the many other commercial interests that their father was engaged in, and David’s commitment to the army.1
William McCrae went to live on the East Flamborough property at the time of his marriage to Jessie Bell Hood, and remained there for many years. The decline of the sawmill business on McCrae’s Place was offset by the property gradually reverting to pastureland for farm stock. About 1860, Thomas McCrae had become interested in stock-breeding, and on his Guelph farm he bred Herefords, Shorthorns, and Polled Angus cattle, as well as Cotswold and Southdown sheep. In 1880, he began importing Galloway Cattle from Scotland and gradually transferred them from the Guelph farm along the Brock Road to the Mountsberg property. They were to become the oldest herd of Galloway cattle established in North America, and remained on the property for half a century. William managed the farm for many years, gradually increasing the size of the herd by careful breeding.
In 1871 the Credit Valley Railway obtained a charter to build a railroad from Toronto to St. Thomas to connect up with the Michigan Central Railroad, and by 1873, the surveyors reached the northern part of East Flamborough Township. In 1874, the line now owned by the C.P.R. bought a right of way through the northwest corner of Concession 13. The McCraes, enterprising Scots, visioned great progress from the advent of the railway, and made a deal with the C.P.R. to install a siding, stockyards and a flag station on their property, that were to be maintained for 99 years. The original station was named after the family, but unfortunately it was destroyed by fire about 1910, and the replacement building that came from Cooksville had the name misspelled, and it eventually became known as the McRae Station. It was a three-sided frame structure that saw cattle shipped to Toronto, and in the 1920s and early 1930s was the terminus for Mountsberg area students attending Milton High School or Galt Collegiate Institute. With the sale of the McCrae property in 1931, the siding and the station fell into disuse, and it was eventually moved to Puslinch Township.
With the death of both David and William McCrae in 1930, the sale of the property to Archie Scott, the era of McCrae’s Place came to an end.
© The Waterdown-East Flamborough Heritage Society 1991, 2022.
