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Roblin’s Mill

~ Black Creek Pioneer Village ~

Canadian poet Al Purdy knew more than most people about the ghostly workers of Roblin’s Mill. This excerpt from his poem, entitled “Roblin’s Mill,” sets the mood of this site:

The lighting alters...

and you can see...

a bald man standing

sturdily indignant..

………

………

In the building men are still working

thru sunlight and starlight and moonlight

despite the black holes plunging down

on their way to the roots of the earth

Built in 1842, the mill was originally located in Ameliasburg, near Belleville, Ontario.

Ameliasburg was once named Roblin’s Mill, in honour of Owen Roblin, who had the mill built there.

Catherine Crow said, “Owen died at ninety-seven years of age, after the turn of the century. Will Roblin, Owen’s grandson, took over ownership of the mill just prior to the First World War. He eventually lost interest in the mill and closed it down. Ameliasburg, without the mill, had a definite decline in commerce.”

In 1964, the conservation authority acquired the mill and moved it to Black Creek Pioneer Village.

This five-storey stone building is powered entirely by a large, wooden overshot waterwheel. The mill machinery includes two runs of stones to grind wheat, lotting reels for sifting flour, and elevator belts to move grain and flour.

Roblin’s Mill, 1842

Although there is not a sensational example of spirit activity in the building, Black Creek employees have believed for years that the mill is haunted by the “old ones.”

Catherine alluded to one experience at the mill.

“Employees at the site have seen the big wheel turning when it has been disconnected for the winter, as if unseen hands were still going about the business of making flour.” Other eerie phenomena and superstitions are also associated with the mill. For example, when pigeons [that roost in the mill’s rafters] are restless and coo incessantly, a change in weather is believed to be on the way.

Poet Al Purdy may have gotten it right about the ghostly workers when he stated the following:

Those old ones

you can hear them

lost in the fourth dimension

what happened still happens

a lump rises in your throat.