Hayhoe Hayhoe

The old Hayhoe Brothers Mill in Woodbridge survived 180 years of floods, economic downturns, government neglect and even a massive hurricane before it was put out of business by a Canada Day (2008) fire.

"This mill was a survivor," said historian Ron Brown, who wrote about the mill near Islington Ave. and Highway 7 in his book Toronto's Lost Villages.
It was the last of the 80 mills that once lined the Humber River, it was believed to be the area's oldest business. Small houses to the east of the mill were post-war housing for mill workers.
Firefighters saved the south wing of the building, with its office units and historic memorabilia.

Since the mill was built in 1828, it provided flour to nourish pioneers and whiskey to liven up their dances, as well as grain for China, the former Soviet Union, and western Europe during the rebuilding after the Second World War.

It was a distillery from the 1860s to 1880s. In the 1940s, ownership passed to the Hayhoe family, who sold the mill last year to New-Life Mills Ltd., another family owned Canadian operation and a subsidiary of Parrish & Heimbecker Ltd.

Several mills along the Humber went out of business in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as grain production shifted to the Prairies, with the construction of a trans-Canada railway and the introduction of hardy grains that could survive Saskatchewan winters.

In 1935, in the depths of the Great Depression, the operation was bought by University of Toronto graduate Harold Hayhoe. The owners dramatically upgraded the property, then repaired it after it survived the winds and rain of Hurricane Hazel in 1954.

With its loss, the best remaining example of a 19th-century Ontario mill in the GTA is the one at Black Creek Pioneer Village, Brown said, although it's not on its original site.