From the beginnings of recorded history there has been an attraction to this spot. Archaeological digs have unearthed three sites used by the Neutral Native people’s from back when a stream flowed down to the river.

The first Mill was built on the site in 1853, and remained until the main building of that Mill burned in 1964. The original plot was purchased by a New England Sea Captain by the name of William Cartwright in 1828. The road that now runs between the mill and the river was once a trail used by native people’s, and it was on that trail that Governor Simcoe passed in 1793.

Today the pond formed by the mill is now a protected environmental spot, due to the mature swamp at its south end and for the rehabilitated diversity throughout. Encircling the pond are huge Oaks, Maples, Birchs and majestic White Pines and Eastern Cedars; many the last descendants of a once great forest that stretched along the northern shores of Lake Erie, west to Lake Huron and then as far as the Niagara region where Lake Erie meets Lake Ontario. This region is the uppermost tip of that unique mixed deciduous forest that stretches all the way down into the Carolina’s, hence its Canadian name of Carolinian Zone.