Aultsville, Dickinson’s Landing, Farran’s Point, Maple Grove, Mille Roches, Moulinette, Santa Cruz, Sheek’s Island, Wales and Woodlands — 10 Ontario villages you won’t find on any current maps.
Collectively known as the Lost Villages, they were communities located near Cornwall, whose buildings were successively, moved, burned, demolished and submerged between 1954 and 1958 as part of the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway.
The flooding here was the result of the construction of the Moses-Saunders Power Dam, a project directed by Ontario Hydro and the Power Authority of New York State, which broke ground on Aug. 10, 1954.
Jim Brownell is the president of the Lost Villages Historical Society, which operates the Lost Villages Museum located in Ault Park, just east of Long Sault, one of the planned communities created to house displaced residents. He was six years old in 1954 and lived on a farm just north of Moulinette.
"Ontario Hydro offered people a buyout, and if a house was structurally sound enough to move, they would move it," he says. "History books say that many vulnerable people were taken advantage of in those dealings, but many people were also happy to be getting a bathroom instead of a privy, and a new block basement with a furnace in it, which was part of the compensation package."
The town of Iroquois was also flooded, but moved 1.5 kilometres north, while the buildings in the part of Morrisburg that was submerged were relocated within town boundaries. Neither town is officially part of the Lost Villages.
By the end of the project, about 6,500 people were displaced, with 530 buildings moved by Ontario Hydro and the rest destroyed. Hydro crews performed the burns and demolitions while outside contractors moved some of the buildings.
"When I was in Grade Three, one of the most profound moments of that time is as clear to me as if it were yesterday," says Brownell. "They burned my best friend’s house in Mille Roches to the ground while he was watching. He just cried his eyes out."
Many historic and architecturally significant buildings were demolished. Buildings were also sold to residents as salvage for $10 apiece, provided the new owners could move them in time. A barber shop and a train station both wound up as chicken coops on local farms. Brownell’s father, Earle, brought a garage, and with the help of his sons, dismantled it and reconstituted it on the family farm property.
Ontario Hydro also exhumed and moved some of the remains of local residents from cemeteries that would be flooded.
"My father and his brother decided that my grandparents would have wanted to remain in the cemetery in Moulinette," says Brownell. "Ontario Hydro placed a cap of six or eight feet of glacial till over their graves to prevent erosion when the waters rose."
When a cofferdam was finally blown up on July 1, 1958, residents expected a tidal wave of water. The actual inundation was gentle and anti-climactic as water slowly rose and covered the village sites over a period of four days.
The Lost Villages Museum was founded to keep the memories of the 10 Lost Villages and hamlets, and their residents alive. The site includes 10 buildings, some of which were moved from the original communities prior to the flooding. The museum also houses a wealth of related photographs, documents and other artifacts.
Sometimes, however, memories have a habit of returning from the abstract to something more tangible.
"Last year, before Halloween, some boats got stranded in Montreal harbour and they had to get some water down to them to raise the vessels," recalls Brownell.
"The water, at this end of the seaway, was lowered so much that the streets of Wales were above water, something I had never seen happen. I went to Dickinson’s Landing and saw the same thing. I visited Elliot’s Garage for the first time in almost 60 years — and the toilet was still fixed to the floor of the washroom."
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