ls to grind the
grain for the settlers. These were known as the King's Mills.
Water-power mills were located near Kingston, at Gananoque, at Napanee,
and on the Niagara River. The mill on the Detroit was run by wind power.
An important event in the early years was when the head of the family
set out for the mill with his bag of wheat on his back or in his canoe,
and returned in two or three days, perhaps in a week, with a small
supply of flour. In the early days there was no wheat for export. The
question then may be asked, was there anything to market? Yes; as the
development went on, the settlers found a market for two surplus
products, timber and potash. The larger pine trees were hewn into timber
and floated down the streams to some convenient point where they were
collected into rafts, which were taken down the St Lawrence to Montreal
and Quebec. Black salt or crude potash was obtained by concentrating the
ashes that resulted from burning the brush and trees that were not
suitable for timber.

For the first thirty years of the new settlements the chief concern of
the people was the clearing of their land, the increasing of their field
crops, and the improving of their homes and furnishings. It was slow
going, and had it not been for government assistance, progress, and even
maintenance of life, would have been impossible. That was the heroic age
of Upper Canada, the period of foundation-laying in the province.
Farming was the main occupation, and men, women, and children shared the
burdens in the forest, in the field, and in the home. Roads were few and
poorly built, except the three great military roads planned by
Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe running east, west, and north from the town
of York. Social intercourse was of a limited nature. Here and there a
school was formed when a competent teacher could be secured. Church
services were held once a month, on which occasions the missionary
preacher rode into the district on horseback. Perhaps once or twice in
the summer the weary postman, with his pack on his back, arrived at the
isolated farmhouse to leave a letter, on which heavy toll had to be
collected.

Progress was slow in those days, but after thirty years fair hope of an
agricultural country was beginning to dawn upon the people when the War
of 1812 broke out. By this time the population of the province had
increased to about eighty thousand. During this first thirty years very
little had been done in the way