Centennial Park September Roundabout, Ayr ON Canada

A mid-September walk around Centennial Park’s Watson Pond in Ayr Ontario, featuring scenic panoramas and landscapes. Please see the little YouTube slideshow for more images and a detailed history. T his is the f ifth instalment in a Waterloo Region parks' 'roundabout'' series. A mid-September walk around Centennial Park's Watson Pond, founding settler Abel Mudge's Cedar Creek dam and millpond, which supplied water power for his 1824 sawmill (16 Northumberland Street) at the Cedar Creek - Nith River confluence. American emigre Rev. Mudge (1783-1832) raised the dam after purchasing 40 hectares (100 acres) from William Dickson (1769-1846), a Scottish emigre, land speculator and Galt (Cambridge) founder (1816). The resulting settlement was called Mudge's Mills. Northumberland Street, constructed in 1826 following Mudge's petition for a link with nearby Roseville, runs between the millpond and Mudge’s mill site and forms the park's west boundary. The millpond was enlarged in 1872 and 1949, supplying Daniel Manley's mills and John Watson's foundry. Settlers emigrating from the Scottish lowlands began arriving in large numbers in 1832. One such arrival, John Hall (1777-1850), who also dammed Cedar Creek and established Jedburgh hamlet immediately upstream of Mudge's millpond. Jedburgh featured a distillery and flour mill, both of which were supplied by Hall's pond. Main Street and Jedburgh Pond form the park's east border. A third hamlet, Nithvale, which was founded by James Piper (1813 - ?) and situated downstream from Mudge's Mills on the Nith River, featured two sawmills and a flour mill. In 1884, the Ontario provincial legislature incorporated the Village of Ayr with the merger of these three hamlets. A plaque, embedded in a park retaining wall and entitled "1867 - 1967 / Centennial of Confederation / Ayr Centennial Park / erected by the Village of Ayr in permanent commemoration of the Centennial of Confederation in Canada in 1967. Construction was made possible through the co-operation of the Province of Ontario and the Government of Canada." A Grand River Conservation Authority plaque, located adjacent to the dam on Northumberland Street and entitled 'Watson's Dam', states: "In 1824, this site, where Cedar Creek enters the Nith River, became a source of water power for Ayr’s earliest industry and settlement, Mudge's Mills. Later in 1884, along with Jedburgh (1832 in the east) and Nithvale (1837 in the west), the three settlements were incorporated as the village of Ayr. In 1868, John Watson, a Scottish immigrant, purchased the Abel Mudge property and built the Dam. In 1965 the John Watson Manufacturing Company (1884) transferred its water rights to the Grand River Conservation Authority and the Village of Ayr, in an overall program of beautification and water conservation. Watson's dam represents one of the important historic features for which the Grand River was designated a Canadian Heritage River in 1994." A North Dumfries Our Heritage plaque, located at the Jedburgh pond dam on Main Street and entitled "Jedburgh Dam", states: "In 1832, John Hall, a young immigrant from Jedburgh Scotland, purchased 75 acres that included the land now flooded by the Jedburgh Dam. By 1850 Hall had developed several industries including a grist mill, a saw mill and a distillery, all using water power provided by the damming of Cedar Creek at this site. He named the area Jedburgh. However, in 1840 following keen rivalry between Jedburgh in the east and the other two settlements, Mudge's Mills in the centre and Nithvale in the west, the name Ayr appeared for the first time when Robert Wyllie, from Ayrshire Scotland, established a post office. The Village of Ayr was incorporated in 1884." For more Ayr history, see "Mudge Legend Deeply buried in Ayr history" by rych mills, (Waterloo Region Record, 5 Dec. 2015) and "A Few Steps Back in Time (A Heritage Walking Tour of Ayr, Ontario)" by the North Dumfries Municipal Heritage Committee (a brochure by North Dumfries L.A.C.A.C., 2003). This is the f ifth instalment in a Waterloo Region parks' 'roundabout'' series.

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