Longford Mills, Ontario

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Longford Mills, in Ramara, Ontario, Canada is an unincorporated community established in 1868, when John Thomson and Mellville Millar put up a large sawmill on the south-west shore of Lake St. John. Initially the place was unnamed and simply known as Thomson and Millar's. The name Longford is derived from Longford Township, the main source of timber to supply Thomson's mill. In 1867 John Thomson purchased by auction, the right to cut timber in the township, from the Canadian Land and Emigration Company. Thomson later purchased the township, outright from the Company.

The timber of Longford Township was driven down the Black River to Rama. It is a common misconception that the Black River flows into Lake Couchiching, though it does join with the waters of the Green River, about a mile below Washago.

The construction of a canal, from the Black River to Lake St. John, proposed in 1868, by the Rama Timber Transport Company, made John Thomson's selection of the site for his mill feasible. Other lumbermen had proposed the Rama Timber Transport Company as a means of supplying timber from Muskoka and Victoria County (via the Black River), to their Lake Simcoe mills.

Lake St. John was an excellent place to boom the logs, from where they could be sorted and delivered to their respective owners. John Thomson was a shareholder of the Rama Timber Transport Company and also a member of its first Board of Directors. Although the canal did not open until the spring of 1869, the mill was fully operational by August 1868.