The German Mills were purchased and kept in operation by Capt. Nolan, of the 70th Regiment, at the time on duty in Canada; but the speculation was not a success. We have heard it stated that this Captain Nolan was the father of the officer of the same name and rank who fell in the charge of the Light Brigade at the very first outset, when, at Balaclava,
"Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred."
The Gazette of March 19, 1818, contains the following curt announcement: "Notice. The German Mills and Distillery are now in operation. For the proprietors, Alexander Patterson, Clerk, 11th March, 1818." Ten years later they are offered for sale or to lease in the U. C. Loyalist of April 5, 1828. (It will be observed that they once bore the designation of Nolanville.) "For sale or to be leased," thus runs the advertisement, "all or any part of the property known and described as Nolanville or German Mills, in the third concession of the township of Markham, consisting of four hundred acres of land, upwards of fifty under good fences and improvements, with a good dwelling-house, barn, stable, saw-mill, grist-mill, distillery, brew-house, malt-house, and several other out-buildings. The above premises will be disposed of, either the whole or in part, by application to the subscriber, William Allan, York, January 26, 1828. The premises can be viewed at any time by applying to Mr. John Duggan, residing there."
In the absence of striking architectural objects in the country at the time, we remember, about the year 1828, thinking the extensive cluster of buildings constituting the German Mills a rather impressive sight, coming upon them suddenly, in the midst of the woods, in a deserted condition, with all their windows boarded up.
One of our own associations with the German Mills is the memory of Mr. Charles Stewart Murray, afterwards well-known in York as connected with the Bank of Upper Canada. He had been thrown out of employment by Capt. Nolan's relinquishment of the mills. He was then patronized by Mr. Thorne of Thornhill.
In our boyish fancy, a romantic interest attached to Mr. Murray from his being a personal friend of Sir Walter Scott's, and from his being intimately associated with him in the excursion to the Orkneys, while the Pirate and the Lord of the Isles were simmering in the Novelist's brain. "Not a bad Re-past," playfully said Sir Walter after partaking one day of homely meat-pie at the little inn of one Rae. Lo! from Mr. Murray's talk, a minute grain to be added to Sir Walter's already huge cairn of ana. Mr. M., too, was imagined by us, quite absurdly doubtless, to be an hereditary devotee of the Pretender, if not closely allied to him by blood. (His grandfather, or other near relative, had, we believe, really been for a time secretary to Prince Charles Edward Stuart)
A mile or two beyond where the track to the German Mills turned off, Yonge Street once more encountered a branch of the Don, flowing, as usual, through a wide and difficult ravine. At the point where the stream was crossed, mills and manufactories made their appearance at an early date. The ascent of the bank towards the north was accomplished, in this instance, in no round-about way. The road went straight up. Horse-power and the strength of leather were here often severely tested.
On the rise above, began the village of Thornhill, an attractive and noticeable place from the first moment of its existence. Hereabout several English families had settled, giving a special tone to the neighbourhood. In the very heart of the village was the home, unfailingly genial and hospitable, of Mr. Parsons, one of the chief founders of the settlement; emigrating hither from Sherborne in Dorsetshire in 1820. Nearer the brow of the hill overlooking the Don, was the house of Mr. Thorne, from whom the place took its name: an English gentleman also from Dorsetshire, and associated with Mr. Parsons in the numerous business enterprises which made Thornhill for a long period a centre of great activity and prosperity. Beyond, a little further northward, lived the Gappers, another family initiating here the amenities and ways of good old west-of-England households. Dr. Paget was likewise an element of happy influence in the little world of this region, a man of high culture; formerly a medical practitioner of great repute in Torquay.
Another character of mark associated with Thornhill in its palmy days was the Rev. George Mortimer, for a series of years the pastor of the English congregation there. Had his lot been cast in the scenes of an Oberlin's labours or a Lavater's, or a Felix Neff's, his name would probably have been conspicuously classed with theirs in religious annals. He was eminently of their type. Constitutionally of a spiritual temperament, he still did not take theology to be a bar to a scientific and accurate examination of things visible. He deemed it "sad, if not actually censurable, to pass blind-folded through the works of God, to live in a world of flowers, and stars, and sunsets, and a thousand glorious objects of Nature, and never to have a passing interest awakened by any one of them." Before his emigration to Canada he had been curate of Madeley in Shropshire, the parish of the celebrated Fletcher of Madeley, whose singularly beautiful character that of Mr. Mortimer resembled. Though of feeble frame his ministerial labours were without intermission; and his lot, as Fletcher's also, was to die almost in the act of officiating in his profession.
An earlier incumbent of the English Church at Thornhill was the Rev. Isaac Fidler. This gentleman rendered famous the scene of his Canadian ministry, as well as his experiences in the United States, by a book which in its day was a good deal read. It was entitled "Observations on Professions, Literature, Manners, and Emigration in the United States and Canada." Although he indulged in some sharp strictures on the citizens of the United States, in relation to the matters indicated, and followed speedily after by the never-to-be-forgotten Mrs. Trollope, his work was reprinted by the Harpers. Mr. Fidler was a remarkable person,—of a tall Westmoreland mould, resembling the common pictures of Wordsworth. He was somewhat peculiar in his dress, wearing always an extremely high shirt-collar, very conspicuous round the whole of his neck, forming a kind of spreading white socket in which rested and revolved a head, bald, egg-shaped and spectacled. Besides being scholarly in the modern sense, Mr. Fidler possessed the more uncommon accomplishment of a familiarity with the oriental languages.