German Mills, Ontario

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German Mills is a community within the Town of Markham, Ontario, Canada. Located in the area known as Thornhill, Ontario, German Mills was named for the early German settlers in the area. The community was founded as a village in the 1830s by German Jewish immigrant, Samuel Liebshitz. Liebshitz originally named the village Jewsburg.

The German Mills history is closely associated with the founding of Toronto, then called "Muddy York". It is also very much part of the early history of Markham, previously known under the name of Mannheim, "the home of man", as the late John Lunau and former curator of the Markham museum would say.

German Mills was part of the first Lieutenant Governor Simcoe's overall design to establish a city and a bulwark against a possible American invasion. In doing so, there was a critical need to find people that can settle this province while being in hot pursuit to build the capital of York with its surrounding areas. Simcoe generally favored settlement with township grants where the military could be located and act as consumers for local markets and town centres. German Mills was seen to be as an agricultural settlement for the food supply to the military and its citizens from the hinterland of the then "Infant Toronto". In 1793 Toronto was little more than an outpost in the wilderness.

And in the same year the history of German Mills and Markham found its beginning.

German Mills became the first significant industrial complex in Markham Township. Thanks to William Moll Berczy, a multi-talented entrepreneur with leadership skill, architectrual, engineering skills and great skills as a painter. He led a group of 64 families with 182 people in total to York in the summer of 1794. This group consisted of bakers, blacksmiths, carpenters, shoemakers, weavers, a preacher, school teacher, brewer, cartwright, locksmith, miller, potter, tanner, stone masons as well as farmers. It represented the first classic immigration model in Canada to fill the critical need of its time. In the fall of 1794 William Moll Berczy had hired men to erect a large house and a sawmill building, at what is now German Mills. And to bring prosperity to the area a warehouse for the Northwest Fur Trade was constructed on the Rouge River at what became Unionville. Toronto and Markham was then a thick, mature forest ideal for the supply of lumber. The forest consisted of pine, oak, maple, butternut and other trees so thick that sunlight was able to penetrate only when the leaves had fallen.

According to an agreement, dated January 1, 1793 and signed with the German Land Company, a supply of cattle had already been on its way from Connecticut before the first settler groups arrived in 1794 in "Muddy York" and German Mills.

The German Mills industrial complex consisted of a grist mill, saw mill and a blacksmith shop. The grist mills produced super fine flour and the saw mill shingles and lumber for the buildings in the German Mills area. It also supplied lumber for the first houses in Toronto, among them the Russell Abbey home of the Hon. Peter Russell and the Col. James Givins house. Both of those houses had been designed by William Moll Berczy, a man known today as the Founder of Markham and Co-Founder of Toronto.

Six years later it became apparent that waterpower produced by the Don river was not sufficient for German Mills to operate efficiently and the German Mills industiral complex went into decline.

Communities of Markham         Edit this list
Angus Glen East Village | Box Grove | Brown's Corners | Buttonville | Cachet | Cashel | Cedar Grove | Cornell | Dickson Hill | German Mills | Hagerman's Corners | Langstaff | Markham | Milliken | Mount Joy | Quantztown | Thornhill | Underwood | Unionville | Victoria Square | Vinegar Hill