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OTTERVILLE DAM, Oxford County, Ontario, Canada - 1904 |
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Starting in 1807 a number of mills were built on the Otter River in Oxford County, Southern Ontario. Pictured here is the Otterville Dam and the mill pond created behind it that have provided the power for one mill built in 1845 that is still operating at the present time. A town called Otterville grew up around it which has since become part of present-day South Norwich. Also in 1807, John Erb had built a similar mill (the Cambridge Mill) in Preston, Ontario. In 1857, at the age of 66, his son Samuel Erb and several of Samuel's grown sons moved to Otterville and continued the family tradition by bulding a woolen mill there. Tragically, the mill burned down only a few years later in 1861 and Joseph Erb's wife Mary Kay died in the fire. During a twenty year period from the mid-1850s to the mid-1870s a number of interrelated familes lived in Otterville: Samuel Erb died there in 1878. His son Joseph L. Erb lived there with his first wife Mary Kay and their children Emery Titus, Ladica, and Melissa - and with his second wife Adelia Marie Seamans and their first child Cicero Joseph. Samuel's son Jared L. Erb also lived there with his wife Sarah Hare and their children Alice, Mary, Ellen, and Edward. As did Samuel's son Henry L. Erb with his wife Sarah Seamans (sister of Adelia) and their children Albert, Erson, and Jodie. And Samuel's son Abraham L. Erb with his wife Maria Quickfall and their daughter Hannah. Also living there were Mary Kay's father George Kay and her brother William F. Kay; and the Seamans sisters' parents Thomas Seamans (Simmons) and his wife Mary Carder. Emery Titus Erb married Mary Ann Scanlan in nearby La Salette, and the Scanlan family also lived in Otterville. They included Mary Ann, her parents William Scanlan and Catherine Donovan, and her siblings John W., Catherine, Marcellus, and Martha. By 1880 all of these families (except for Mary Kay's parents and Abraham Erb's family) had immigrated to Manistee Co., Michigan. It was the return of this branch of the Canadian Erbs to the country their grandparents had left some 75 years earlier. |
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Go here [an off-site link] to see a current picture of the dam and a web page devoted to historic Otterville. Go here to see a picture of John Erb's Cambridge Mill. Go here to see a picture of Bear Lake, Manistee Co., Michigan. Go here for the family tree of Samuel Erb and his sons. Use the INDEX of Photos button below to look for pictures of Joseph L. Erb, Emery Titus Erb, Adelia Seamans, William Scanlan, Mary Ann Scanlan, and Catherine Donovan. |
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jhlarkins
@msn.com (John Larkins)