The community of Bell Ewart, near Innisfil on Lake Simcoe, owes its existence in large part to American lumber magnate Henry Williams Sage.
Born in 1814, Sage started his career operating a line of barges on the Erie Canal in New York state. He then established a wholesale lumber yard in Albany. The product he sold was imported Canadian lumber; shipments came from Toronto across Lake Ontario and down to Albany via the Oswego Canal.
To maximize profits, Sage decided to cut out the middleman. He’d mill his own lumber. In 1854, the 40-year-old built a large sawmill in Bell Ewart. Initially, the logs were purchased from landowners all around Lake Simcoe and towed in vast booms to the mill. There was no shortage of timber as trees were felled by the thousands each year and homesteaders busily cleared their land. Milled lumber was carried by train to Toronto, with the railway offering Sage a reduced rate if he guaranteed a certain number of carloads per month.
In 1860, Sage secured contracts to supply the Union Army of the Potomac with its lumber requirements and, to facilitate that endeavour, he opened a massive lumber yard in Brooklyn. To keep up with demand, he opened another sawmill in Michigan. Profits flowed in.
By 1866, however, Sage was faced with a dilemma. The future of his Bell Ewart mill was up in the air. The lands immediately around Lake Simcoe had been denuded of harvestable trees. If the Bell Ewart mill was to continue operation, he needed to find a new source of timber, and fast. His salvation came in the form of timber rights in Oakley Township, in Muskoka, east of Bracebridge.
Sage had the idea of driving logs down the Black River into Lake Couchiching and then onto Lake Simcoe. A great idea, save for one problem: The Black River doesn’t connect with Lake Couchiching. Instead, it empties into the Green River and onto the Severn River. A mile or so separated the two bodies of water, but it might as well have been a hundred. What to do?
Sage was nothing if not industrious. His background provided the answer to the problem: Why not build a canal? He hurried about gaining support from other lumbermen who faced the same difficulty. The Northern Railway of Canada also supported the company since the decline of timber on Lake Simcoe had also led to a decline of revenue for the railway. In 1868, the Rama Timber Transport Company and a crew of 50 got to work digging the canal.
The Rama Log Canal opened the following year. Once again with a ready source of logs, the mill at Bell Ewart was saved. But Sage didn’t stick around. Later in 1868, he sold the mill and its Oakley timber rights to Harry Beecher and a partner.
The sawmill survived only another decade. On July 24, 1879, it burned down and was never rebuilt.
Sage died in 1897, and his role in putting Bell Ewart on the map was largely forgotten.
