Some residents continue to rely an old-fashioned pump to obtain water from the artesian well off King Street across from the Medical Centre. Municipal signage advises that water from this source has not been treated, but some prefer it because of its taste and the fact that it come out very cold.
This is how water was secured for household use in the past.
By Dan Bourgeois
Last September 4th and again on the 5th, there was a watermain rupture in the main pipe running under Dufferin Street beside the Old Millbrook School, leading to a boil water advisory for the village that wasn’t lifted until September 9th. At the same time, due to drought conditions a number of rural properties and farms in Cavan Township were dealing with their wells running dry.
This got me thinking about how the early residents in our area dealt with securing a clean water supply. If the early settler was fortunate to have a spring producing clean cool water on their property, they were in luck. A pond or stream passing through their land was certainly helpful, but there was always the possibility of contamination by livestock or wildlife. (Beaver fever infection is not a fun experience). For many, digging a well for water supply was one of the first steps in homesteading.
Digging a well by hand is hard manual labour. A hole wide enough to use a short handled shovel and pick was made, the walls shored up with bricks, stones or wooden cribs as the hole became deeper. The earth was hauled up by a bucket on a rope. Depth of a well could be only 3 or 4 metres before hitting good water flow, but some-times much deeper wells were needed and the water quality wasn’t always that good. Often a community digging bee would be formed to get the job done. Aside from the arduous work, it could be dangerous. A loaded bucket which accidentally slipped as it was raised could easily maim or kill the man digging below and this was not at all unheard of.
By the mid 1800s horse or steam powered drilling systems were developed which greatly improved how wells were dug. Around the same time, hand pumps made their appearance replacing the bucket and rope. On some farms, a pipe was run from the well to a handpump by the kitchen sink, an early modern convenience to be sure.
The same situation applied to the developing communities in our area. Many village homes and businesses had a well dug on site, but not all were so fortunate. In addition, as many families kept a horse, a cow for milk, chickens, etc. and were using an outhouse or an early version of a septic bed if they had indoor plumbing, the risk of a contaminated well was ever present. Sometimes a homeowner with a good well would share the water with neighbours. Glenn Falllis grew up on Tupper Street in the 1950s and one of his morning chores was to carry some buckets of water over to the widow living next door. A pipe was run from the well over to the other next door neighbour.
Millbrook was fortunate to have many springs in the area which could be tapped and pipes fed by gravity could supply homes and businesses downhill from the spring. An iron pipe led from a spring on Medd’s Mountain, under the mill pond and over to the end of Princess Street then up to Anne Street, supplying many of the homes on Anne, Prince and Princess Streets. A spring near the entrance to the Station walking trail across from the Medical Centre supplied a 3 ½ inch clay pipe that ran down the back of properties on the north side of King Street, sup-plying those homes and possibly some of the downtown village buildings. Remnants of this pipe have been discovered as back yards have been dug up for various reasons over the years.
There is still a standpipe with good flowing water at the entrance to Station trail which is used as a source of drinking water by many, especially during the water main break. A similar standpipe once stood near the corner of Tupper Street and Manor Drive.
By the late 1800s most larger towns and cities in Canada had municipal water and sewage services. Smaller communities continued to rely largely on individual wells and septic systems, although this was changing after the Second World War.
In 1971 it was discovered that Baxter Creek as it passed through Millbrook was contaminated by human waste leaking into the village storm sewer system, either from leaky septic systems or property owners connecting their own sewer pipe directly to the storm sewers. A report to Millbrook council proposed the installation of a municipal water and sewage system. While most villagers agreed this was a problem, there was significant opposition due mainly to fears about the cost and impact on municipal taxes.
During the municipal election of December 1971, Millbrook voters were polled on the following questions.
“Do you approve of the construction of a municipal water system? The result was-Yes 102, No 204.
Do you approve of the construction of a municipal sewage system? The result was- Ye, 115, No 202.”
Eventually it was decided that municipal water and sewer services were necessary and in August 1974 a bylaw was passed to move forward with installation. An article in the Millbrook Chronicle noted that a home with 66 feet of frontage would pay an annual fee of $137.49 for sewage and$110.11 for water. In 1976 the systems were completed. The lifespan of the water mains were estimated at fifty years, which is nearly exactly the age at which the water main on Dufferin Street failed.
Nowadays I doubt there is significant opposition to the requirement that “urban” com-munities provide water and sewage services. But we’re still free to complain about the rates.