Stories of Bethel Community

03/28/2023

Memory of First Radio in Stories of Bethel Community

This story was told by Ellen McAllister who is presently the longest living Bethel resident... now 106 years.

"Those of us who remember both the first radios and the beginning of T.V. know that radio was by far the most exciting discovery.

By the time television arrived, we more or less took such technical inventions for granted!

It was around 1926 when Daddy decided we should have a radio.

That was before we had electricity in our home so it had to be run from a car battery. George Bosworth, who had a service station and garage in Paris (where the Kentucky Fried Chicken used to be) brought the set out.

I remember the day so well, Lewis, Danny and Gordon and I sat still as mice, taking everything in, trying to hide our excitement as Dad and Mr. Bosworth proceeded to hook up wires and an aerial.

Mother, busy with her Saturday baking, glanced in from the kitchen now and then, not taking time to sit down until the thing was ready to go.

Then the big “MOMENT” arrived!

When Mr. Bosworth first turned the dials, all we heard were screeches and whines, then suddenly it was like heaven came into the room, when the most beautiful Hawaiian guitar music filled the room. We were spellbound, to hear for the first time music from the air.

Later on when all was back to normal I slipped into the living room alone to see if I could fathom this mystery on my own.

The thing was an insignificant metal box about the size of a shoe-box sitting on the table with a couple of k***s on the front, and open at the back revealing three glass tubes set in a row.

A wire ran from this panel to the horn-shaped speaker on the table beside it large horn. Two wires also extended to the car battery on the shelf below. Another wire went over the window sill, outdoors where it hooked up to an aerial wire strung from the house to a telephone pole about fifteen feet away.

How this contraption could pick sounds out of air was beyond me.

We soon learned that this new invention had a temperament all its own. One time it would work like a charm while the next night it would howl and carry on like a cat fight, as was the case when we invited our next door neighbours, Delbert Scbuyler and family, over to hear it. We apologized for its behavior, “last night we even had Wheeling, West Virginia” which they probably didn’t believe.

It worked best on a cold clear night, if there was any hint of a storm in the air the reception was hopeless.

Then too it was frustrating as the battery quickly ran down, and that meant a trip to town, leaving it to be charged, plus a return trip next day to pick it up.

After the novelty wore off we used it sparingly, keeping it mainly for Saturday night, when Foster Hewitt brought to us the excitement of the Maple Leaf Hockey games. It was a wonderful experience to hear him shout “He shoots – he scores”! We all cheered and clapped as if we were right there at the game.

When hydro came to our community in the 30’s, the first luxury we allowed ourselves was a radio run by electricity. It became the entertainment and information centre as news flashed into our homes, opening up a whole new world beyond our own.

Comedians such as Amos ‘n Andy, Fibber McGee and Molly, and George Burns and Gracie Allen made our homes ring with laughter.

The birth of Soap Operas such as the “Guiding Light” and “Maw Perkins” relieved the drudgery of household chores.

We became involved in the events of “One Man’s Family” and enjoyed the fine drama of the “Lux Radio Theatre” while “The Shadow Knows” scared us half out of our wits.

While washing up breakfast dishes we tuned into Don MacNeils “Breakfast Club”, marching around the kitchen table, listening to poetry and prose and good music, always pausing for the “quiet time”.

At noon Hour it was the “Happy Gang” that brought us an hour of peppy songs and jokes. All these, and more, were a part of a marvelous era that brought laughter, thrills, excitement, tears and happiness into our lives.

But for most of us the radio is forever bound to World War ll; it was radio’s finest hour.

Bombs seemed to fall right into our living room as Edward R. Murrow and Lorne Green dramatically described the Battle of Britain.

Nor will we ever forget Winston Churchill’s words of assurance in the face of despair…”I can offer you nothing but blood, sweat and tears – but we will conquer them!” stirring us to our very innards and haunting us for days.

Later, when victory was imminent, the relief of laughter at his famous quote – “some chicken – some neck”! Radio reached from the front lines to our homes. It brought the awful news of war and the good news of peace.

A couple of years later, those refrigerator-sized TV’s began to appear. Though radio would continue to have its place in communication, its period of romance and wonder in our homes had passed."

Written April 1981 by Ellen (Whiting) McAllister

01/28/2023

Life on the Mile Hill.

Just came across some new information about Rudi Piovaty’s escape from Czechoslovakia.

In 1958, Rudi returned to Switzerland for the first time in 16 years.

In a Swiss newspaper interview, Rudi stated that for the safety of his relatives at home, su***de was feigned by means of a farewell letter and a hat found in the river, and Mrs. Piovaty put on mourning clothes.

He escaped the grasp of his pursuers (N**i bailiffs) using the simplest mask in the world, a holiday traveler.

Rudi boarded a train to Tyrol, Austria as an alpinist. He was equipped with pickaxe, tent sheet and spoke German, so he was not of suspect to the police-controls on the trains.

From Tyron he moved further west, hiking through the difficult Alps near Klosters in Graubunden into Switzerland.

To send his wife a message about the successful escape, he avoided detection by using a Swiss Company he did business with before the war.

The Swiss Company was asked to send an official offer of certain goods to a Brno store, using his nickname as the brand. This is how his wife found out that this brand was in Switzerland and back in stock!

I personally knew Mr Piovaty, and the opportunity to know him was a privilege.

My father Clinton Pottruff met Mr Piovaty in the mid 1960s. Mr Piovaty would come to our farm to get fieldstone from our big rock pile.

I did not strike up a relationship with him until the summer of 1974. I had just completed my first year of Forestry at Lakehead.

I must admit I was leery driving onto his property… because the poacher-shotgun incident weighed on my mind!

Our conversation did not go well!

Mr Piovaty’ s thick Czech accent made him hard to understand.

Somehow, Piovaty thought I was the Peart who had applied herbicide on a windy day and damaged his planted trees.

Finally, he understood I was the Pottruffs he got rocks from… and the relationship changed to friends.

He and his friend Ernie Mears, took me under their wings, educating me about their love for the outdoors.

Mr Piovaty would come to the Mile Hill early every morning to work on his place. He always brought a lunch with a thermos of sweet tea.

He built a little cabin with a porch beside the pond. Inside was a cot and a drafting table. Mr Piovaty use to stand at this table and draw his plans.

When I met him, he had recently purchased the adjacent property, and now owned 65 acres in total.

Because the property was so hilly, he loved to claim that if he flattened the topography, he had even more acres!

With the Ministry of Natural Resources, I helped plant red pine, white pine, spruce, and cedar on his newly attached property. I later sold Christmas trees for Mrs Piovaty from this plantation.

Ironically, the conifer trees were not stunted by herbicide, but the salt spray off Rest Acres Rd.

Before Mr Piovaty bought the property in 1960, there was already a small pond there. Harold Edgar use to pump water from this pond up the hill to a barn for his pigs (this was in 1959.)

Mr Piovaty enlarged the pond to a quarter acre and installed an earthen dam.

The deepest point in the pond was 12ft.

Installed on the pond’s bottom, was a flow-gate valve attached to a long pipe... that went under the retaining dam.

The control of the flow was by a key on a long handle. This key went down to the valve underwater... and opened and closed the flow gate.

He built a fieldstone wall around the pond with a drive-in access. Harold Edgar remembers driving his tractor around the floor of the pond loading rocks in position for building the walls.

When the pond was completed, Mr Piovaty stocked this pond with rainbow trout.

Ernie Mears showed me some 8mm film of Rudi pellet-feeding the fish. The surface of the water thrashed with trout… thus the "one & only" local poacher incident.

In the late 1960’s, Mr Piovaty discovered many boot prints around the pond. Because he did not live there, he suspected someone was coming early morning and poaching his trout.

So, Mr Piovaty decided to check this out.

Early in the morning he drove in, parked his vehicle and quietly walked down the road to the pond, staying hidden.

There he saw two men in their early twenties taking trout out of the pond.

He went back to his car and got his shotgun, filling it with light birdshot. He then walked back into view, shouting at the two poachers, who immediately started running. That is when he gave them a round of bird shot. One poacher got two pellets, but the other got over 100!

When the newspaper article came out about the incident. Mr Piovaty became known as “the man on the Mile Hill with a shot gun”. That article also discouraged future trespassing!

After that incident, Mr Piovaty opened the valve and emptied the pond of the trout. Thus, the end to any further poaching.

I remember that where the spring stream flowed into the pond, Mr Piovaty had a dipper hanging from a tree. We all drank from that community dipper. The ice-cold water was so good!

Diving into that crystal-clear, spring-fed pond… took your breath away. During the summer, Mr Piovaty, at the age of 77, loved to swim each day in that spring water before heading home.

During the winter, Mr Piovaty faithfully went swimming every day at the YMCA pool in Brantford. He was well known there because of his regular attendance.

In his mid sixties, he hand-dug with shovel, axe and wheelbarrow, about 10kms of trails through his property.

What was even more amazing, was watching him strap a full 2-gallon gas can pack on his back, then he pushed his lawnmower all through his property, cutting the hilly trails.

He was still doing this type of activity at the age of 77. And his wife and friends were always worried he would drop dead!

I had never seen a man of this age with such stamina, strength and “gusto”.

In his cabin, he had aerial photos and a hand drawn map (to scale) of his Mile Hill property with all the trails and valleys named.

Speaking of aerial photos…

I remember one Sunday going over to his house at the Old Country Furniture for dinner. He had this standing wooden box that you could look through lenses to see in stereo, 3-D glass slides. He brought out this box of stereo-photos mounted on glass plates… and showed us his alpinist hikes through the Alps in the 1920’s. It was amazing. And definitely of value, since he brought them from Czechoslovakia with his limited possessions.

Mr. Piovaty loved symphony music. One day we were sitting on "Sassafras Point" overlooking his pond. He described a similar layout in Switzerland, where he could sit on a hill with everyone else and listen to an outdoor symphony perform below. He said he would love to do something like that here.

I cannot tell Piovaty’s story without including Ernie Mears… those two were like “peas in a pod”!

Ernie lived at the bottom of the Mile Hill, on Washington Street. Ernie was a medicinal plant hunter… and knew the location of many rare plants throughout the County of Brant.

In his younger days, Ernie talked about fearing for his life when he came across a whiskey-still in one of the old gypsum mines.

Ernie and Mr Piovaty transplanted many rare plants onto the property… including the rare pink and yellow Lady Slipper orchids.

I remember the day Ernie got a moose hide. He and Piovaty cut and made sinew, then built their own snowshoes. Ernie’s hands were already badly gnarled with arthritis. The tough work of stringing the snowshoes worsened the condition of his hands and he never recovered.

On Mr Piovaty’s property, was one of the highest points in the County of Brant. It is marked by 1 square metre of land, belonging to the Govt of Canada. Mr Piovaty had proudly marked this spot with a Canadian flag flying above and a plaque.

I can remember the government putting up a tower on this spot, then at night operating a light system to align with a tower in Ancaster. This was being done to measure changes in the magnetic North for mapping.

Mr Piovaty also had a passion for educating kids about the outdoors.

In 1972, Keith Laidlaw a Paris public school teacher was granted permission to bring local Paris kids hiking on the property to learn about nature. Keith brought many classes over the years. To accommodate them, Mr Piovaty even made a volleyball area for the kids on top of one of the hills.

The spot selected for his Mile Hill home was on a pure sand knoll overlooking the pond. He had to drive pilings deep into the ground for stability of the foundation… as well as a cement retaining wall that went more then 20ft down to hold back the hillside.

He designed the Mile Hill house himself… I can remember him showing the drawings of the Swiss chalet he planned to build.

The furnace oil tank he put underground was his pride and joy… it was huge! I want to say a 1,000- gallon capacity! Today, in 2023, that would be $9,000 for one fill up!

While carpenters were building his house, Mr Piovaty had more fieldstones brought in. I watched him in his mid 70’s, hand-split the stone with chisel and mallet. He was using the stone for siding around the foundation and for the two stone fireplaces inside the house.

He had western cedar shipped in from British Columbia for the siding and shingles on the house. I remember him splitting shingles and personally hand-cutting the outline pattern of all the wood panels around his deck.

As his dream house went up… he toured me whenever I came over.

He moved in just before Christmas of 1976. His natural-looking chalet complemented the landscape. The woodwork inside was gorgeous… and the interior decorating was like stepping into a magazine!

He had lived in this house for a year, when on January 26 and 27, 1978, Ontario was hit by one of the worst blizzards that dumped a lot of snow on the Mile Hill.

Mr Piovaty normally shovelled himself out, but there was too much snow this time.

On January 29, 1978, Mr Piovaty walked up the Mile Hill to ask a neighbour to plow him out. Unfortunately, the neighbour was in Florida. So, Mr Piovaty went back down the hill and started hand shovelling his driveway.

A young teenage couple driving up the hill stopped to see if he was alright, because his face was so extremely red. In fact they asked if he medically needed help. He said he was fine.

They encouraged him to stop because he did not look well.

After they left, Mr Piovaty had a heart attack and died in his laneway.

But there is more to this story.

The same couple that stopped, showed up a few years ago at Piovaty’s granddaughter’s art gallery, outside of Huntsville.

When they saw her name on the business card, they told her their story about stopping and talking to her Grandpa. They were probably the last people to see him alive.

I was the forester in Ottawa when he died and was overwhelmed at the loss.

When I came back to visit his wife, she asked if I knew of anyone who could be a caretaker and live in the garage apartment. My friend Phil Ogborne came to mind… and that is where Phil spent the next 3 years helping Mrs Piovaty.

Keith Laidlaw also continued to come over and cut the grass and the trails.

Around 1980, a man was hired to clean out the pond. Phil got the key and opened the water valve, and drained the pond. When the pond was filled again, Phil accidentally dropped the key... which now lays at the bottom of the pond beside the valve.

I think I will end the story here…

I hope these two stories help you understand that Mr Piovaty was more then just “the man with the shotgun on the Mile Hill” !

He was actually a man worth knowing!

Garth Pottruff

01/21/2023

The Man On The Mile Hill

Most know him in Paris as the guy who shot the poachers!

But he actually was a famous Czech celebrity and a counter-intelligence plant in the German Intelligence of Czechoslovakia.

In the 1920’s, Rudolf Piovaty (Piowaty) was Czechoslovakian National celebrity.

He was one of their best swimmers, a multiple champion and record holder.

In the Paris 1924 Olympics, he swam a time of 3:11.8 minutes in the 200m breaststroke semi-finals (6th place - eliminated) and competed in the 4 x 200m freestyle relay team but was eliminated in the qualification rounds.

He honed his swimming skills while training in the Czech military.

And when the N**i’s invaded Czechoslovakia he acted as a German spy but actually was a British spy. When his true identity was discovered by the N**is, he fled from Czechoslovakia in July of 1942.

But he was prepared for his flight.

In 1939 when the Germans invaded Czechoslovakia, he had his wife divorce him to protect her and his son from retaliation.

The internet says he used his Olympic prowess to escape by swimming across Lake Constance to Switzerland… but that is not the story he told me.

In a 1958 Swiss interview with Rudi it states this: "In order not to cause any inconvenience to Rudi's relatives at home, su***de was feigned by means of a farewell letter and a hat found in the river: and Mrs. Piovaty put on mourning clothes.

He escaped the grasp of his pursuers (N**i bailiffs) in the simplest mask in the world: as a holiday traveler to Tyron, Austria. He was an alpinist, equipped with pickaxe, tent sheet and spoke German, so was not of suspect to the police controls on the trains.

From Tyron he moved further west, hiking through the difficult Alps near Klosters in Graubunden into Switzerland.

As he approached the Swiss border markers, their location did not match up with his map and compass. So, Rudi went further… and came across a 2nd Swiss border. He crossed into a valley, where he approached a Swiss farmer.

The farmer was shocked to see Rudi and wondered how he had ever made it through.

It turned out, the Germans had set fake boundary markers, one mile outside of Switzerland. Filled all the buildings with German patrols.

And as people thought they were safely walking into Switzerland… they were being shot or recaptured.

Upon finishing this story, Mr Piovaty pulled out a compass from a leather case and said… “this saved my life”.

In order to send his wife a message about the successful escape, he avoided being detected by using a Swiss Company he use to buy from before the war.

The Swiss Company was asked to send an official offer of certain goods to a Brno store, using his nickname as the brand. This is how his wife found out that this brand was in Switzerland and back in stock.

In 1958, Rudi went back to Bern, Switzerland to undertake the same mountain trip he did when escaping in 1942.

Because of my forestry background and love of nature, Mr Piovaty became a very good friend… I spent a lot of time on the Mile Hill.

So, you can end here or read more…


THE RUDOLF PIOVATY TIMELINE (The correct spelling was Piowaty).

Rudi’s father was father was Jakub, born May 3, 1864, in Brno-Žabovřesky and his mother Mathilde, was born 1867 in Schram.

1897… their first son was Otto Piowaty born in Vienna, Austria.

1900… Rudolf (Rudi) Piowaty was born April 28, 1900, in Brno, Czechoslovakia.

1906… Rudolf’s father dies (who may have been of Jewish descent). The boys are raised by their mother in a strong Catholic background. Their mother is quite affluent because she owns one of the largest millineries (hat business) in Vienna, Austria and Brno, Czechoslovakia.

1908.. Rudolf learns to swim with his older brother Otto in the Jewish operated swimming pool in Brno under the leadership of an Austrian named Karel Lange.

1918… joins military service in the Rifle Infantry Regiment and is also assigned to the officer’s school in Brno, where he remains as a military instructor when he is done his schooling. In his spare time, his focus is swimming competitions.

1920… As a competitive swimmer, he specialized in breaststroke . Even though he is one of the fastest swimmers in Czechoslovakia, he did not compete in the Olympic Games in Antwerp because he did not have the proper documents ready.

He also played water polo and spoke about the fact that the Italians were dirty players… they had tacks taped inside their hands to cut their opponents.

1921… October, Rudolf Piowaty joins a Czech infantry unit and is awarded the rank of sergeant.

1921… he is the Czech Champion swimmer in the 400, 500 and 1,500m freestyle and member of the Makkabi championship relay in the 4 x 50m.

1922… Czech Champion swimmer in the 400m freestyle time - 6:17.3 min and 1500m time- freestyle in 26:39.8 min. (Czech record) against Hungary and German swimmers

1924… Czech Champion…swam 100m time- 1:26.5 min and 200m breaststroke time- 3:01:4 min (Czech Record)

1924… Competes in the Olympic Games in France.

1925… he wins his last national title in the 100m breaststroke, 200m breaststroke and the 3x100m medley relay.

The situation in Brno for swimming had worsened. Rudi and Otto were practising at the Brno Jewish community pool, but financial support for the pool was redirected to keep the Jewish soccer club SK Blue Star Brno alive, instead.

1926… the swimmers had no place to train because of reconstruction of the Jewish community pool. Rudi and his brother founded their own non-Jewish club, the International Swimming Club Brno, but due to a lack of funds, they did not participate in the 1928 Olympic competitions.

1928… (approximate)… Rudolf marries Anna Jurková. They operate a rug importing business which does extremely well. Anna became a school teacher... but her dream to be a physician was discouraged by her step-father.

1929… their only son is born.

1930’s… Piovaty continues coaching swimming and rowing teams.

1938… during mobilization, he was assigned to the Czech infantry regiment in Beroun as a lieutenant.

1939… the Germans invade the Czech provinces.

Rudolf Piovaty deliberately divorces his wife for her own personal safety.

1942… Rudi Piovaty escapes from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to Switzerland.

1943... his brother Otto dies in a German concentration camp in Germany

1943… Rudi tries to cross the Franco-Spanish border but fails. So remains in Geneva as a resistance fighter, where he becomes a Czech delegate working with the League of Nations in the Information Office using his English, German and French language skills.

1944… After the liberation of France, Piowaty was sent to Great Britain as an infantry lieutenant of the Czech reserves… then interim Commander.

1945… On November 14… after 3 years of being away from Czechoslovakia, Rudolf returns to his family and remarries his wife Anna. He is the interim Commander of transport to the homeland.

He is awarded the Czechoslovak Military Medal of Merit, 2nd degree, and the Czechoslovak Military Commemorative Medal.

One winter in the 1980's, his military & Olympic medals were stolen from his home in Paris, Ontario. The thieves accidentally dropped one of his Olympic medals, and when the snow melted it was found in the mud.

1946… Rudi leaves the military service, and returns to the rug import business.

1948… After the communist coup of Czechoslovakia, the Piovaty delivery man comes and asks for the keys to their business, informing he is taking over in the name of the communist party.

The Piovatys were an affluent family. To prepare for emigration to Canada… they converted their financial assets to precious stones and sent these stones ahead in a lamp fixture.

The Piowaty’s were able to get Canadian sponsorship, thus visas. Being a Czech celebrity may have helped with obtaining their visas.

The Piovaty family of three plus daughter-in-law arrived in Montreal by ship with trunks containing their possessions.

They were given the dreaded DP label… which stands for “Displaced Person”. Being a DP, was a status label that was looked down upon by many Canadians.

They went to the area of their sponsors, Simcoe. Their sponsors were good friends who had left Czechoslovakia for Canada just before the war.

The Piovaty s ended up buying a property on Hwy 53 between Brantford and Burford. Being DPs, they felt isolated, and their Czech accent impacted communication.

But one advantage to the Burford area, was being surrounded by to***co farmers of European background… these farmers strongly supported Piovaty’s furniture business in Brant County.

Mr Piovaty told me an interesting story from a European perspective of how to get work in Canada. The belief was that by looking poor when you went for an interview, the employers would take pity on you and hire you. He quickly found out that was not true!

His son (Peter) started working in to***co and his daughter-in-law (Helen) worked as a maid.

Helen was a very gifted design artist, and her father owned a large textile business in Czechoslovakia. Peter had worked in his family import rug business… so both were skilled in the textile business and were hired by Harding’s Carpet in Brantford, where their careers excelled.

Rudi Piovaty tried raising chickens, but a coyote destroyed his flock.

Then he bought an old station wagon and wooden trailer… and started refinishing furniture. That endeavor led to the establishment of the Old Country Furniture Store on Hwy 53.

There is so much to this story… that I will present it in two parts.

Next one will be... “Life on the Mile Hill”.

01/19/2023

01/15/2023

104~ Not a Wood Cutter’s Fairy Tale!

He was hauling logs with his tractor out of the bush down old Gypsy Lane, when he came upon a parked car.

Suddenly a man got out of the car pulling a naked woman. He knocked her down, kicked her in the head, jumped on her and started stabbing her with a screwdriver.

The log cutter grabbed a six-pound splitting axe off his tractor and ran towards the man. The man looked up, jumped back into the car, started it and began to move.

The woodcutter smashed the back window of the car to try to get in… but the car moved on.

The car went down Gypsy Lane, stopping where it entered Powerline Road. The man jumped out, abandoned the car and ran away.

The woodcutter did not pursue, but returned to the blood covered woman on the ground. He picked her up and got her to his son’s house. There, he called ambulance and police.

The fleeing man moved down the road and slipped into the farmhouse of Gordon Whiting. Gordon was not there, but his wife Jennie was in the house napping. The man entered the room with Jennie’s kitchen butcher knife.

He awoke her and said, “I won’t hurt you; I want your car and I want it fast”. Jennie opened the electric garage door and gave the man her keys.

The man then drove the Whiting car to Paris where he held up the Bank of Montreal. Ironically, the manager of the bank was Mrs Whiting’s next-door neighbour!

The bank manager said the man gave them a hard time. Then he hopped back into the car and drove to Brantford.

He abandoned the Whiting car in the Cowell Pharmacy parking lot and took a taxi to the Sears Mall in Brantford.

In Brantford he got new clothes, a haircut and stayed overnight at Journey’s End.

Believe it or not… this criminal slept in the room adjacent to the OPP officer sent down from Toronto to oversee the operation to catch him.

The fleeing man then made his way to Chatham and stole another car. Three days later he was captured driving just outside of Sault Ste. Marie in another stolen car.

The whole event started in London, where the man murdered his girlfriend. The he drove to Toronto where he killed a janitor and took his car.

Next, he drove to St Catharines, where he waited by a financial institute to take another victims car. Which was the girl he took to Gypsy Lane in Bethel.

This guy drove well over 1600kms around Ontario from the time he murdered his girlfriend in London until he was captured.

The Gypsy Lane rescue by the wood cutter happened January 22, 1990.

As the woodcutter said… “if I had arrived 30 seconds later… the girl would have been dead.”

The woodcutter was an ex-OPP officer named Alan Pike… and he emphatically stated he was no hero… just someone who instantly regressed to being a policeman.

In my books… helping someone in danger… is always a hero!

01/03/2023

103~ Bethel Hits The Beach!

Living on a farm... the highlight was going to Ipperwash Beach near Grand Bend for a week.

What is interesting is... that when we rented a cottage... the entire community came up to enjoy it with us!

So here is Bethel at the beach!

12/28/2022

102~ The Story of Apps Mill… and What’s Inside!

Everyone who has walked around Apps Mill, tries to peak inside to see what is there!

Thanks to Jim Fowler, who lived and played in that mill as a kid… I have made sketches of the inside… plus stories to tell.

HISTORY TIMELINE OF APPS MILL

1840… the mill was built by Mr. Fraser and was called "Valley Mill".

1856… Charles and William Apps came to Canada from Sussex, England and settled in Cayuga, Ontario

1858… Apps brothers buy Valley Mill … Charles Apps hired William and Thomas Lovett (of Bethel) to build the white frame house on top of the hill.

1859…Charles Apps married a Charlotte Gurney… and had four sons and five daughter.

1861… William is living in the same house with his brother Charles, Charles’s wife Charolette and 1 year old daughter, plus Charolette's sister Selena Gurney.

1864… William Apps marries Jessica Carlyle and has 5 children… Jessica, Alfred, Albert, Alexandra (Allie), and Edward (Edmund)

1870… William leaves the milling business, moves into Brantford to start a feed store on Colborne Street.

1880… the big grindstones are replaced with rollers. Previously there were four small run-stones as they were called, made from a soft burrstone material. Constant motion wore the stones down. So, the miller had to recut the grooves regularly with a diamond drill or a steel pick. A hoist was used to work on the stones… each stone weighed 1,000 pounds.

There were also smaller grind stones in the mill... Albert App was quite skilled at dressing these stones.

1881… a man was killed in the mill when his clothes caught on a moving belt… he was pulled in and suffocated by the pressure of the power wheel.

1882… Alfred starts working at Apps Mill at the age of 12 years.

1889… Charles Apps dies in Apps Mill; his personal property is valued at $9,513.00 and real estate at $10,700.00. William Apps buys out his brother share and returns to operate the mill.

1899… Alfred marries Caroline Mary Louisa Will, wedding was in Toronto… they have 4 children… Stanley, Francis, Percival, and Arthur.

1900… Albert marries Isabel Grigor Robertson… they have 3 girls… Alberta, Mary, and Muriel.

1901… Alfred’s youngest son, Arthur, dies at the age of 1 year.

1911… William Apps at the age of 77 years has a paralytic stroke, remains unconscious for 3 days before dying. His two sons Alfred and Albert take over the mill operation.

Albert runs the mill and lives with his wife Belle in a small, shingled house that was in front of the mill. It was Albert’s wife Belle who designed the red brick house by the mill, but she died before it was completed.

Alfred, the other brother, runs the office (employing, buying, selling & exporting.)

Alfred learned Morse Code… and kept the mill in operation 24 hours a day from 1890 to 1920.

The Apps brothers have 34 employees working in the mill plus office staff.

1913… Marion Pottruff at the age of 15 years, was employed to work in the office. She would often snowshoe 2kms across the fields and down the hill to get to the mill in the winter. She worked there for 10 years until she married Russel Carter.

1920… Albert’s wife Belle dies. Belle’s sister Mary comes to keep house and care for the three daughters.

Alberts eldest daughter, Mary, worked in the office and married Gordon Racey, a civil engineer who ended up running the mill with Albert until it closed.

1920’s… a new back section is built onto the mill.

1929… the stock market crashed, and the mill business suffered a huge financial loss, putting Alfred under heavy stress.

1930… a small electric motor is installed in mill on second floor to drive a conveyor. Bran was brought in through the back doors of the mill… and the leg took the bags up to the 2nd floor for storage… thus the open floor area.

1931… Alfred’s son, Percival, who won a “Classics” scholarship in Bonn Germany… died at the age of 23 of flu while on a ship returning home.

1933… Alfred committed su***de in the mill, but his brother Albert continued to run the mill.

1934… Gordon Racey joins the milling business with Albert.

1936… Heavy flooding blows out the wing dam on Whiteman’s Creek… Apps don’t have the finances to fully repair

1939… To***co is booming in the area and irrigation is removing so much water that it is preventing the mill from operating. This impacts profit… which impacts the ability to buy new equipment… so the business slowly bleeds to death.

1940… A truck is bought to deliver grain… drivers were Delbert Robinson, Charles Priest, and Mark Woodhatch

1941… Albert sells the red brick house with the mill to his daughter Mary and her husband, Gordon Racey

1948… Apps mill is strictly running as a grist mill for flour… continues like this until the mill shuts down.

1954… The final blow to the dam was Hurricane Hazel … the flooding from all the heavy rain made Whiteman’s Creek break the dam even more. The damage was too costly to repair, Albert was able to run the mill sporadically, pending enough water accumulated in the millpond to turn the turbines.

1956… Albert dies, and the mill ceases operation

1959… Gordon & Mary Racey sell Apps Mill to Neil Young (this is the man who does all the grain thrashing in Bethel)

1960… Neil Young sells the mill to Charles and Pam Fowler

1961… Fowlers start putting trails through the property for hiking… was hoping to restore and get the mill operating as a tourism attraction… but no financing… so ended up selling equipment in the mill.

1966… Fowlers sell the mill to Brantford Township for $25,000, but continue to rent the house until 1970.

1970… Grand River Conservation Authority buys Apps Mill from Brantford Township for $25,000.

1981… $100,000 was spent to preserve the structural integrity of the mill. A new foundation wall was put under the back section of the mill, cedar shingle siding was added, a new roof, a new porch, and there was replacement of insecure interior flooring. Also, the money was used to restore the old Apps Mill sign that was once on the roof.

2021… the red brick home of Albert Apps was burned and torn down by the GRCA

Other Facts of Interest

Charles Apps one son is Ernest. Ernest graduates as a pharmacist from University of Toronto and runs a pharmacy in Paris, Ontario. Ernest is the father of Syl Apps the famous hockey player & politician.

The Apps brothers were one of the first mills to import wheat from western Canada.

They only used Grade ‘A’ wheat, no additives or bleach were added to the flour. The flour was bolted through a white silk and the bran was discarded.

Though wheat was the major product, barley was sold to distilleries, rye and oats were sold for cattle feed.

The Apps Mill business also exported turnips, carrots, potatoes, beans, and other vegetables all over Canada, USA, and Europe.
In fact, Apps Mill was the first company to have an automated bean separator.

Most of the product was shipped by rail from the Grand Trunk Railway station just two miles away, in Mount Vernon.

Alfred Apps had a C.N. telegraph receiver and transmitter… watching him do Morse code fascinated the locals… especially the kids.

The Apps brothers always had two teams of horses moving product as needed to the Mt Vernon railway station or to Brantford. My great grandfather Wesley Pottruff was one of those team drivers... doing regular daily loads to Brantford.

The Apps Mill dam was originally made of wood cribs filled with stone, combined with planking. The dam was rebuilt in concrete probably around 1920’s when the mill was doing well financially.

The building use to roar with the sound of all the equipment in it.

On the top floor were huge bins. There were conveyors moving grain up, down, and diagonally. There were also big spinning wheels, hammer mills and a forest of wooden chutes crowed together from floor to ceiling everywhere.

Here is a memory of what the mill was like when it was running...

"I was with my grandfather, Delbert Schuyler, taking a grist (a load of oats, as I recall it, though it may have been wheat) on the wagon behind his Farmall H tractor to the Apps Mill. Probably 1954, the last summer before Hurricane Hazel. I remember the constant roaring noise at the mill, the flour dust everywhere, the gleam of wood polished by decades of flowing grain and flour, how the building shook, and how many various motions were being derived from the simple rotation of the water wheel. Bags of grain, cascades of flour inside pipes, elevators whisking up, stuff coming down. One bag elevator was a system of shelves that went up on a vertical belt, carrying one bag at a time up through the floors to the top -- and a guy who casually stepped with perfect timing (it had better be perfect!) onto a passing shelf and disappeared upward. Flat pulleys of various sizes turning, belts whizzing in all directions, and everybody in there apparently knowing exactly what it was all about. I was impressed. By Laurie Miller.

Wheat was the biggest part of the Apps business. Bought locally and exported as flour internationally.

Barley was bought and sold to distilleries. Oats and rye were ground for livestock feed. My grandfather Wilfred in the 1930s often went to the mill to get ground corn.

The turnip story… the Apps shipped turnips in insulated refrigerator train cars to Orleans, Chicago, Seattle, Georgia, North Carolina… and they used heated cars in the winter. They got a telegraph from Chicago saying the turnips Apps had sent were all frozen… so the carload of turnips would not be paid for. Alfred immediately got on a train to Chicago. Went to the business address where the turnips were delivered. Asked if he could buy any turnips from Ontario? They said yes and he was able to prove the first-grade turnips were his and got full payment.

No less then 18 papers had to be filled out for each carload of turnips.

Men called ‘loaders” brought the gov’t inspected turnips to Apps in 70lb jute bags.

Apps sold potatoes, carrots, and turnips to Campbells Soup.

The Apps brothers were the first ones to have a phone in the area and the only ones to have a private phone line to the Mt Vernon train station. They also had a private line to Paris, Burford and Brantford in the house and the mill.

The three mills upstream at Mt Vernon and Burford helped control the flooding on Whiteman’s Creek… making water fluctuations easier on the Apps Mill dam.

Going down the steep hills to Apps Mill required iron brakes on the wagons. An iron bar was placed in front of the front wheels, then chained to the wagon so that the wheels could not move. The horses had to drag the loaded wagons down the hill to the mill. This story told by Clarence Peart.

In the office was a stove that burned coal with a water jacket. One day the water jacket froze. Unknowingly, Apps lit the stove and 2 hours later the entire stove blew up. A piece of metal ripped clean through a bag of beans by the door. A fire followed that burned all the papers in the office… but that was it.

Skating on the mill pond was not safe when the mill was running… because air spaces were created under the ice and the current was swift.

When cutting ice, Russel Aulsebrook fell through and immediately headed home for fear of freezing to death.

Apps pond was a favourite skating place, plus used for cutting ice blocks.

A Marlatt boy almost drowned in Apps Mill Pond while swimming… he rescued by the game warden Sam Newstead who lived up the road.

But there was another incident where a person did drown in the mill pond.

There were numerous drownings at the Apps mill dam, swimmers going to near the dam were getting sucked in by the spinning hydraulic effect. This was created by the cascading water plunging into the pool at the bottom of the dam.

The mill pond had big pike and carp in it… Fowlers were hoping to drain the pond, get rid of the coarse fish and stock with trout.

Alfred Apps seemed to be a man more of the arts.

Alfred installed a skylight with a telescope to study the stars in his house.

Alfred was also musically talented. He and Albert donated the first organ to Bethel Church and Alfred became the organist on Sundays.

Alfred also worked with the Burford and Brantford Symphonies. He was what is called "the first violinist" in the Brantford Symphony.

Albert’s two sisters, Jessica, and Allie, never marry and continue to live in William’s house until the last one dies in 1949. Albert financially supported them for 38 years.

Mark Woodhatch… worked for 17 years at Apps Mill before becoming the property manager at Rest Acres.

Mark was a homeboy from England, who came over with Fred Taylor who settled in Bethel. Mark married a local girl, just 1 mile up the road from the mill. Her name was Maria Newstead. Her father was the game warden for the area.

While working at the mill, Mark & Marie Woodhatch lived in a little white house across the road from the mill… which is now a parking lot.

Fowlers were hoping to preserve and get the mill running. They started cleaning the mill, there was over 1 inch of dust on everything.

Brant Historical Society toured and expressed interest in getting the mill running, but no funds.

I want to thank Jim Fowler for his time helping me visualize the mill inside and sharing some photos.

Also, thanks to the work of Ellen McAllister in the Tweedsmuir history books of Bethel, and to the Paris Historical Society for their research area and files.

Research assembled by Garth Pottruff.