Trout Hollow Mill Burns 155 Years Ago

"The mill is reduced to ashes."

The mill at Trout Hollow near Meaford, Ontario, where John Muir lived and worked with the William Trout family, burned to the ground the night of February 21, 1866.  William’s daughter Rachel Trout gives us the exact date in her diary:

“Wed Evening 22nd – What I feared this morning is really true. The mill is reduced to ashes. It seems like some fearful dream. “

The mill’s loss had a significant impact on the Trout family and Muir.  Trout Family History states on page 295:

“When our mill was burned we all separated, each for himself.”

John Muir’s story is well known.  He left Meaford shortly after the fire in search of work.  After traveling south back to the United States in search of work, he would soon afterwards commit himself to, in his own words, “follow his dream of exploration and study of plants.”  This path led him to become an influential naturalist and environmentalist, and was instrumental in the founding of The U.S. National Park system.  

The story of the Trout family in the aftermath of the mill fire is, of course, less well known.  The mill fire left a lasting impact on the Trout family, separating them from each other and setting them on their own life journeys.  

Elder William Trout (1801-1877)

William and Catherine Trout of Meaford

The total loss at Trout Hollow created a tremendous financial hardship for the patriarch of the Trout family in Meaford.  They not only lost the mill and the modest income it provided making tool handles, they lost an entire season’s worth of inventory. Though his finances would eventually recover, his health deteriorated rendering him unable to work.  He spent most of his time with family and at the Disciples meeting house where he preached and tended to its congregants.  His wife Catherine died in 1869 and shortly afterwards he moved in with his daughter, Mary Trout Jay, where he would live out his days, passing eight years later.

Mary Trout (1831-1883)

Mary was the oldest of William’s surviving children and not only acted as a “second mother” at home, but also helped operate the Trout Hollow mill with her brothers.  A few months after the fire Mary wedded Charles Hugh Jay (1839-1909), a close friend and business partner of her brother William H. Trout.  Charles was part owner of the Trout Hollow mill and was instrumental in handling the settling of accounts after the fire.  After her father moved in with them, the Jay home became the new center of the Trout family, providing comfort to visiting family members that had moved away.  The Mary Trout Jay house, built in 1874, still stands today.  Two doors down is the home built by her son, John C. Jay.  Recent pictures of these beautiful homes are included below.  Mary died in Meaford at the age of 52 after a long illness.  Her descendants live across Ontario—several in the Meaford area—while others live in the U.S., including Illinois, California, and Georgia.  

Mary Trout Jay House, Meaford

John C. Jay House, Meaford

William Henry Trout (1834-1917)

Mr. & Mrs. William H. Trout and their children, Milwaukee, 1895

The younger William left Meaford almost immediately after the fire in search of work.  He headed for Oil Springs, Ontario, by way of Toronto, a 300 mile journey from Meaford.  While in Toronto he visited nearby Pickering and proposed to his girlfriend Jennie Knowles, before continuing on to Oil Springs.  There he immediately found work as a machinist.  He soon moved to nearby Petrolia and together with Charles Jay and another friend from home, built a blacksmith and machine shop for servicing oil wells.  This venture was short-lived due to the plummeting price of oil.  William returned home and worked various jobs in Owen Sound as a millwright and machinist, before marrying his fiancé Jennie at the family homestead in Pickering in November 1867.  Eventually the family moved to Peterborough, Ontario, where they lived for about ten years before moving to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  William worked as a machinist, and then as a draftsman and mechanical engineer and patented close to 30 inventions related to the sawmill industry.  He spent the last decade of his life researching our family roots, culminating in his work, Trout Family History, published in 1916 just a year before his death.  Five of William’s eight children survived into adulthood, and today their descendants are spread across the U.S., from California to Texas to New York.

Edward Trout (1835-1923)

Edward Trout, c. 1860, Toronto

At the time of the mill fire in 1866, Edward had been living in Toronto for about five years working as an agent for the Toronto Leader newspaper.  His success in this job allowed him to send money home to help pay his father’s debts.  This pattern would continue for much of the rest of his life.  Edward’s success allowed him to help many members of the family financially.  He granted several family members free tuition at the British American Business College in Toronto, of which he was president and owner.  With his financial assistance his wife, Jenny Kidd Trout, established the Toronto Medical and Electro-Therapeutic Institute and became the first licensed female physician in Canada.  Though they had no children of their own, Edward and Jenny adopted two children, Jenny’s grand-niece and grand-nephew, Helen and Edward Huntsman.  Edward and Jenny retired to Los Angeles, California, where many of the Huntsman-Trout descendants reside today.  

John Malcolm Trout ( 1837-1876)

John Malcolm Trout, c. 1860, Toronto

Like his brother Edward, John was also living in Toronto when the mill burned down.  He had been married almost three years to his childhood sweetheart, Eliza Jane McMillan, and had a one year old baby girl, Florence.  John had recently taken a job as a reporter for the Toronto Leader, where his brother Edward also worked.  This work came naturally to John, as his talent with reading and writing was evident at an early age.  He was reading the New Testament at age four.  His brother William regarded his speaking ability as “perhaps the best in the Academy” when they were in school together.  He left the Leader and with his brother Edward, started their own paper The Monetary Times.  He edited the evening edition of the Toronto Daily Telegraph, and published a book, The Railways of Canada: 1870-1.  John died of tuberculosis at the age of 39, which his brother William believes was hastened by John’s demanding work routine and the heartbreak of losing two children to diphtheria.   His son Herbert, a promising young doctor, also died of tuberculosis at age 30.  His two remaining daughters, Rose and Florence, married and had children.  Today their descendants are spread across the U.S., from California through the Midwest, to South Carolina and Florida.  

End of Part I

The lives of James, Peter, Harriet, Rachel, Margaret, and Alexander will continue in my next post.