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". . . in excavating for a sewer on King Street, a block south of the original Abraham Erb mill, an old corduroy road made of elm logs was encountered, eight to ten feet below the present street level."A quote pulled from the headline stories of this past spring in uptown Waterloo? Not at all. It's from Clayton Wells' article "A Historical Sketch of Waterloo," published by the Waterloo Historical Society in its 16th annual report dated . . . 1928! Wells started with "Not so many years ago" thus that initial corduroy road re-emergence could have been any year in the early 1900s. And that's about a century after Abraham Erb and neighbours had constructed Waterloo's first infrastructure — that corduroy road —sometime between 1808 and 1816. A century later, as Wells reveals, the log road's original location was already eight to ten feet below King Street. Such early log road remnants have appeared in several local places over the years but what made 2016 noteworthy was the length and uniformity.
Last week, Flash from the Past tried to depict how the erection of Abraham Erb's 1816 grist mill was the point at which the community of Waterloo was born. Back then, what's now the entire downtown area was a soggy, swampy bog with Beaver Creek (renamed Laurel in the 20th century) running sluggishly across the Great Road. To allow distant rural neighbours access to his 1808 saw mill and 1816 grist mill, a passable road was necessary. Logs provided a solid base for a dirt road to be built upon.
In late July 2016, another remnant from Erb's original gristmill era emerged. Just north of the railway crossing, a surprisingly intact brick tunnel was uncovered four feet under the King Street asphalt. It had been there since the earliest days of the Erb/Snider mill. As seen in the attached map, this carried the outflow of the gristmill. After damming Beaver Creek to create a mill pond (today's Silver Lake in Waterloo Park) one flume carried water to his sawmills. A second fed his overshot wheel grist mill after which the water flowed through this tunnel under the Great Road/King Street toward today's Regina Street. The 2016 tunnel emergence received minor press attention and little historical analysis. It was quickly demolished and filled in by the construction workers. Conceivably, this may have been a manmade artifact from Waterloo's history even older than the Waterloo Park school house. A few photographs were taken but enquiries of workers at the site indicated that nothing substantial was saved. (Search "1928 Waterloo Historical Society" for Clayton Wells' article; scroll to page 28.)
The founder's name has been well preserved in modern Waterloo. Abraham Erb Public School is just west of Laurel Creek Reservoir. A provincial plaque in Waterloo Park honors his important role in the city's development and nearby is Erb's 1820 log schoolhouse. Abe Erb's, a popular bar/restaurant on King South, sits right where part of his original mill stood. Erb's 1812 second home, 172 King S., is designated under the Ontario Heritage Act. In 1996, the City of Waterloo replicated his original mill at the edge of Waterloo Park's Silver Lake.
Doors Open Waterloo Region takes place next Saturday and there are 48 sites this year, an eclectic mixture of historic and modern. On my list? In Kitchener, the original Bell building at 48 Ontario St. and the new home of the Region of Waterloo archives in the ex-courthouse building at Weber and Queen streets; in Waterloo, the old Seagram warehouse, now home to Shopify at Erb and Caroline. In Cambridge, I want to compare Ferguson and McDougall cottages on Grand Avenue South. Or I could spend the day touring Doors Open in Maryhill and West Montrose. Decisions, decisions! Search "Doors Open Waterloo 2016" for full listings.
Source: http://www.therecord.com/living-story/6851125-flash-from-the-past-lrt-construction-unearths-history-again/
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