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Walking on to the property of Springwater Mills Ltd., is like walking into history.
This sawmill is one of the oldest continuously operating businesses in Elgin County
and has been owned and operated by the White family since the turn of the 19th century.
It’s still going strong. Owner-operator Ken White Jr. is planning to install a new
computerized saw that will increase the company’s efficiency in producing logs,
veneer logs and floorboards. The current electrically powered sawmill is capable
of consistently producing products at a rate of 1,000 board feet an hour.
Ken Jr. has run the business since 1995 when his father retired. Ken Senior had
been the operator since 1957, a long time – but longevity is built into the White
family heritage.
They are descended from William White, a Pilgrim, and his son Peregrine, who was
born aboard the Mayflower at Provincetown Harbor in 1620. One hundred and seventy
years later their descendant Ira came to Upper Canada in 1790 as a United Empire
Loyalist. He built sawmills and flour mills that were the mainstay of communities
in what became Elgin County (established 1851) and later in the village of Unionville,
now part of the Town of Markham.
Ira White’s son Albert carried on the business and built a mill near the former
village of Springwater on Bradley’s Creek in 1835.
“Albert built most of Springwater, where the Springwater Conservation Area is now,”
recalls Ken White Senior, who is Albert’s great-great-grandson.
Through successive generations, the White family not only carried on successfully
with Springwater Mills but spread out and founded many other businesses. One of
the best known today is Steelway Building Systems, an international exporter of
pre-engineered steel buildings and a major employer in the Town of Aylmer.
It is owned by Ken Senior’s cousins Bryan and Jason White.
Springwater Mills itself is an international business, since the wood products it
sells to wholesalers are shipped around the world as far away as China and Japan.
"Walnut and cherry are the best-selling woods," Ken Senior says.
Ken Junior runs the business with the help of his sister Melanie and his wife, also
named Melanie. They have three children and live at the mill site in one of the
most picturesque spots in Elgin County, with its willow-lined pond set amid the
hills and meadows of the Bradleys Creek valley.
Here a visitor can picture how Elgin County looked more than two centuries ago,
when the White family arrived by oxcart to call this place home.
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