WILLIAM DURLAND DAVY

As recounted by Marguerite McColl (nee Davy) to Barney Moorhouse

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The Davy Brothers built the first Catholic Church in York River (Bancroft.) It is now the Tin Shed, a commercial establishment; formerly the Eastern Star Hall. William A. was the contractor for the United Church. The furniture – seats, pulpit…were made in the Davy furniture factory. Another building, called the “ Yellow Block,” was built but destroyed by fire. William A. also built several houses in the village of Bancroft. These were for rentals.

About 1918 he built a family cottage on the south shore of Baptiste Lake, within walking distance of the village. However, there was no road open there at the time. Building materials could be brought up on the I.B.& O. (Irondale, Bancroft & Ottawa) railway but then they had to be taken by boat to the building site. This cottage is now owned by the Donaldson’s. Much later he and his son-in-law, Pete McColl ( Mrs. McColl’s husband), opened a road that is now called the Fell Road. He built four more cottages, rented three, and the family used the fourth.

In 1917 William A. became employed by Ontario Hydro. Hydro had a paper mill in Campbellford and they needed pulp wood for this operation. They obtained ownership of logs from Bruton Farm. Davy was the foreman for this operation. During the winter he travelled by show shoe through the bush and marked trees that were to be cut. In the spring thaw the felled trees were floated down the York River, through Lake Baptiste, and on to Bancroft.

Opposite to the Eagle’s Nest, on the York River, booms of logs were gathered. Hydro had a mill there, where the Rathbun mill had been, and also where the Brethour house stood. It is now a private residence.

The logs were taken from the water, cut into lengths and put into a barking machine. The machine removed the bark and the logs were transferred to waiting box cars that took them by rail to Campbellford where they were converted to paper or cardboard, as needed. I believe that the mill in Campbellford has been demolished entirely. This whole operation was quite involved, required considerable knowledge and  was managed by W.A.Davy.

At one time Davy had a lumber mill at Elephant Lake. This was not profitable as it was destroyed by fire.

In Bancroft, Mr. Davy owned considerable land along the York River, part of Lot 59, called the mill reserve. He also owned part of the water power rites. When he was older he built a garage for his son, George, and grandson Bill, to operate. This is now a commercial business called Terra Sun.

Also, with son-in-law Pete McColl, he built a large mill in 1933 where they planned lumber, made doors and sash, basket bottoms, shingles and core boxes. These were boxes in which mineral samples were sent to be analyzed. There was also a grist mill. This was all operated by water power. There was no fire or boiler etc. It was all done during the depression years. Mr. Davy would negotiate with a barter system. This meant that he would cut and plane the logs and in return he would accept a fraction of the lumber as payment. This system also applied to the grist mill.

There was no insurance on the mill. In order to obtain insurance Davy would have had to employ a night watchman. Since there was no fire of any kind involved and the times were hard, paying for insurance seemed to be unnecessary. However, such was not the case and the mill was consumed by fire. At this point W.A.Davy decided that it was time to retire. His son-in-law, E.L. (Pete) McColl went to work for the Department of Highways.

Mr. Davy’s time book shows that in July 1939 he employed 23 people. In July 1943 he employed 17. The names are quite common to the area. There were more people employed during the summer months than during the colder weather. However, the mill did provide jobs for people, and J. Maxwell’s horse, when jobs were hard to find. ( Ed. Note- From the time books, 1938-43, I stopped counting at 70 the number of different families represented,recorded working at the mills.)