The O’Hara Mill Homestead is an 85 acre historical site centered on the only known working English Gate or Reciprocating Frame sawmill in Canada. It is located in Hastings County a couple of kilometres northwest of Madoc, Ontario, Canada at 638 Mill Road.
"The O’Hara Mill", as the site is known locally, is owned by Quinte Conservation and managed by a dedicated group of volunteers, the O’Hara Volunteers Association.
- The O’Hara sawmill was a typical small country mill.
- Constructed in 1848, the O’Hara farm house was built by James O’Hara and his brother-in-law, Ben Lear.
- The house illustrates the evolution of a pioneer homestead from it’s more primitive stages, to the elegance of the Victorian period and then later in 1938 to a modern day house complete with electricity. The house has been restored to its circa 1850 state.
- May 1850, James O’Hara Sr. and his son James O’Hara Jr. entered into a partnership. The father agreed to build and operate a saw mill while the son agreed to supply the site with timber and water privileges. This was the beginning of the O’Hara Mill.
- Although the partnership was to lapse after twenty years, the mill continued to cut and sell lumber up until 1908. Thus, some fifty-eight years later, the O’Hara sawmill was a typical small country mill.
- It employed an English Gate or ‘Reciprocating Frame Saw’ technology in which a massive wooden frame stretched the saw blade taut while both the frame and blade were driven up and down by water power. Water also powered the log carriage towards the blade.
- James O’Hara later called ‘Squire’, was 21 when he married Mary Healey. In a ledger entry dated July 30, 1877 he noted, ‘its 54 years to the day since I arrived in Madoc’. Mary, James, and 4 year old Elizabeth arrived Madoc Township in the summer of 1823.
