REYNOLDSVILLE

NAME: REYNOLDSVILLE COUNTY: ONTARIO ROADS: 2WD GRID: CLIMATE: Snow in winter BEST TIME TO VISIT: Spring summer or fall

COMMENTS: REMAINS: The workers’ homes that Reynolds built remain intact, some of them modernized. The ghosts, according to the locals, are at the bottom of the ravine where much of the old stone dam can be seen as well as the site of the original sawmill. The most fascinating of the ruins is the solitary wall of the 1811 grist mill that marks the location of the water wheel.

The town is often referred to by history buffs not as a ghost town but as a town with ghosts. Its origins go back as far as 1786 when saw mills operated on Twelve Mile Creek. In 1811 a grist mill was added and the community was known for a time as Crown Mills. In 1854, a Benjamin Reynolds bought the site and added a wagon and buggy factory. He also added a dozen workers’ homes and a boarding house. The village then became known as Reynoldsville. Things stayed much the same until shortly before the turn of the century. It was then electricity became available and began to change the watercourses of Ontario and of all North America. In 1897 the Cataract Power Company of Hamilton, attracted by the steep drop of Twelve Mile Creek, built a power plant and changed the name of the community to Power Glen, a name that it retains today.

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