Furnace Falls

Furnace Falls. . This was the site of the first iron smelter in Canada west of Quebec. Furnace Falls took its name from the blast furnace. The iron works were built in remote wilderness conditions in 1801 by Wallis Sunderlin an ironmaster from Vermont. By 1803, there were two mills, and a hotel - complete with a 10-gallon liquor still. However, 1811 was a year of tragedy: the ironworks were destroyed by fire, Sunderlin died, and his family returned to the United States smeared with rumors that the ironworks had been used to make armaments for American sympathizers. In 1828, Charles and Jonas Jones built new mills and later lent their names to streets in Lyndhurst., The Furnace Falls post office operated from 1836-1838. Later, in 1846, the name was changed to Lyndhurst. In 1869 John Roddick and Harry Green bought the town site and water rights from the Jones estate and again built new mills. The mill village continued to grow to include a new post office, two saw mills, two grist-and-flour mills, a shinglemill, a carding mill, two blacksmith shops, two hotels, four churches, a harness shop, a tin shop, various retail stores, a brickyard, a railway station, a telephone company, and a hydroelectric generator.