Nicholson

History

In 1898 James McNiece Austin, a general merchant from Chapleau and George B.Nicholson a Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) engineer teamed up to form what would become Northern Ontario’s largest lumber firm. With Austin’s funds and Nicholson’s knowledge of the area’s timber berths, and managerial skills, the two men sealed an agreement to produce ties under contract for the CPR. With a contract at hand, thanks largely in part to Nicholson, the two men hired local French Canadians to produce axe hewed ties.

Twenty-two miles west of Chapleau on the CPR, at a small station named Windemere Siding, Nicholson supervised his operations while still on the employ of the CPR. The site was rather crude at first. It contained a bunkhouse and cookery of rough construction, housed the men, on a small horseshoe peninsula on Windemere Lake. The venture proved successful and in 1902 Austin-Nicholson signed a three-year contract for 100,000 ties the first year and 150,000 more per year over the next two years. Both men knew that their work force were inadequate to produce this amount by hand.

In 1903 they erected a small mill costing a modest $4,163. They expanded the site built new accommodations. From the mill, a row of new buildings emerged. Beside the mill stood the manager’s house, followed by the scaler’s shack, store, cookery and finally the bunkhouse for the 30 hands. The CPR established a ‘boxcar’ station and renamed the site Nicholson Siding. The following year they erected a small frame station complete with a station agent.

The success of the firm was evident and Austin-Nicholson decided to expand operations. Their goal was to exploit the full potential of Windemere Lake’s watershed. With a need for more men for either the mill or bush operations, it was clearly obvious that a further expansion was warranted at the mill site. In 1911, the firm purchased the 56 4/10 peninsula to house the population of 144, albeit mostly men. The siding would then rapidly expand into a self-containing community.

Prior to 1914 the mill had erected additional structures to support its development. These were five large stables, along with two barns (one for cows, the other for 50 pigs), and three large warehouses. They strategically placed these warehouses between the water and the CPR spur line. That was to facilitate the loading of goods into barges so they could quickly transfer it to local bush camps around the lake.

The company laid out a townsite and built a general store which included a post office and grocery delivery. They also built a larger bunkhouse and cookery to accommodate 60 men. In 1913, they established a school section to accommodate 15 students, which was at full capacity by years’ end. The following spring they built a new school house beside the store. Initially the school was a one-storey structure but they needed to expand it once again, this time to accommodate 80 children. They solved the problem by adding a second storey. The CPR station also received a second level.

Nicholson, a fervent Anglican, established an Anglican Church in 1914, and allocated the old schoolhouse for the larger Catholic congregation. The Catholics quickly re-furbished their new church and added a steeple and bell. Due in part to the large French Canadian population, the Catholic Church held two services on Sundays. During the same period, they built many homes all of the same design. Known as cottages, they built the homes with cull wood furnished by the company. Residents paid a monthly rent of $5 for a single story dwelling or $7 for two stories.

In addition to the post office, Potney’s pool hall also set up an operation in the company store. This had the effect of enhancing the social atmosphere. The community also included the Sheffields boarding house (hotel), along with a harness maker, and blacksmith. In 1915 the settlement had grown to 350 residents. It was fast becoming the largest lumbering settlement between Sudbury and the Lakehead. To enhance community services, the company installed a crude piping system to heat the houses using the mills’ boilers. They also strung up an internal phone system which when tied in with the CPR telegraph line which people could sometimes use to make long distance telephone calls.

By 1918 the mill was already at peak production and necessitated an additional 900,000 axe hewed ties to meet quotas. By then nearly 400 residents lived at Nicholson. After the mill at Dalton Mills opened in 1921, they no longer needed the extra manpower and only 298 permanent residents remained. As a matter of fact this was only part of the picture. Each fall or spring as many 1500-2000 men funnelled through Nicholson before dispersing to the numerous logging camps for the winter. For a few months Nicholson would swell to over 500 residents. During the firm’s peak production years around 1922-1928, they added a planer to finish domestic wood products. As many as 360 permanent residents came establish themselves in this remote stretch of track on the CPR

In 1931 Austin-Nicholson still had seven to eight years of lumber left in its stands to keep the mill running. Although affected by the depression years the firm was by then the largest producer of railway ties in the British Empire. Even in shaky times there was some assurance of a few years of prosperity before abandonment. In 1933 fire destroyed mill. Although the company did not replace the mill, they kept the planer in operation for two more years before shutting it down and moving it to Dalton Station, 25 CPR miles away.

The village breathed its last and quickly dwindled to a cluster of 30 or so residents. The school closed in 1936, replaced by the school car until 1956 when the last student left. The company store lasted until around 1954, while the post office followed suit in 1956. Finally the last private store also closed in 1963, and the station two years later. They removed the section gang a few years earlier.

Although abandoned, most buildings were still relatively intact by the early 1970’s. It was even recommended that the site should be preserved as a historical site. After scrapping those plans, a careless fire destroyed much of the site. Today the store foundations are evident as are a few intact cottages of Austin and Nicholson, and a few managerial homes. Dense brush has overgrown much of the village site, but the remains of the school and a few cottages, still linger around, along with the collapsed Catholic Church, and mill foundations. The foundations of the machine shop, blacksmith shop are also evident.