William Ellis built a gristmill and sawmill at the head of the tidewaters on the Bideford or Goodwood River in Smelt Creek, where the present dam is located. He sent to England for a miller, John Barlow, who arrived in 1832, and after clearing a farm for himself, built a carding mill. The loca- tion of this mill along with a shingle mill is shown in the 1880 Atlas a lit- tle farther upstream from the other mills. After William Ellis’s death in 1855, John Barlow bought the mills, and in 1859 sold them to William Barclay, and moved to Wellington. The road that went by the mills was called the Barlow Road. It is told that the old Ellerslle Road used to fol- low the brook.

Alexander Millar was an experienced miller and millwright who came to Prince Edward Island from Scotland, arriving in Charlottetown in August 1850, accompanied by a son and a son—in-law. His wife, nee Janet Crombie, and other children arrived in May 1851, leaving two married daughters in Scotland. Alexander repaired gristmills at Brackley and South Rustico, a flour mill at West River and Clark’s Mill at Wilmot. Returning to South Rustico, he built additional milling machinery for producing oatmeal. He made smutters to remove smut from grain and fitted up a complete con— tinuing millwright work. He was employed at the mills of Dr. Conroy,

John England’s Mills at Bideford. ——FROM BLANCHE ENGLAND COLLECTION

22 Roors & BRANCHES

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