Assured Future With A Gristmill

Source

The building of a gristmill assured the future of the place as a village, and Arthur Ritchie, who had been selling grog in his shanty, determined to cross, and built, in 1833, a tavern on the north-west corner of the road where it crosses mill-street. He did not live long to occupy it. He was a weaver by trade, very intelligent, and much given to theological discussions, his views tending towards those of
free-thinking, and he occasionally lectured or preached to the settlers. He had gone to church on the first Sunday of 1834 and while walking home with 2 friends, and criticizing what Colquhoun had said, he dropped dead. That year John Wilson, whose father had come from Scotland in 1816 and been very successful at Buckingham on the Ottawa, opened a store and tavern on the opposite corner (the east) to Ritchie's, and still (1887) lives there. John Gordon, a shoemaker, who had left East Lothian two years before, lived in Ritchie's house until it was bought by Peter Coutts in 1836, who kept store for 45 years, and was highly esteemed. [Source]