Page 26 - Special Feature.indd

PLACES

P&H Milling stands on historic ground

In 1879, the operation of the gristmill was
taken over by Samuel and John Cherry,
who already owned several mills, and
it continued to prosper. Fi teen years
later fire destroyed the wooden lour
mill resulting in an approximately loss of
$25,000. However, the mill, which Erb Jr.
had built in 1834, was replaced by a new
mill constructed of yellow brick.
Samuel Cherry became the director of
several local business and went on to
serve as a Preston town councillor and
later as a Waterloo County warden. He
died in July 1917.
A few years later in 1923, the Standard
Milling Co. purchased the Cherry Bros.
lour mill which it renamed Cherry-Taylor
Flour Mills. Later, it became known as the
Cherry Mills in Preston, where P&H Milling stands.
City of Cambridge Archives Photo Dover Flour Mill until it was purchased
by P&H Milling whose long history has
the Speed River, laid the foundation for agricultural roots stretching back to 1909.
the creation of a hamlet referred to as
Cambridge Mills. It would be the first The company, known as Parrish and
‘urban’ settlement in the region referred Heimbecker Limited, is family owned and
to at the time as the Germany Company was founded by W.L. Parrish from Brandon,
Tract. MB, and Norman Heimbecker of Hanover,
Erb and his brothers, Daniel, and Jacob, Ont. The company dived into the lour
milling business in 1964 a ter purchasing
were among the wave of Pennsylvania Knechtel Milling in Hanover and expanded
Mennonites farmers who came north to its wheat and durum milling in 1975
establish a colony where their religious through the purchase of the Ellison Milling
ideals could be practised. According Company in Lethbridge, Atla.
to Kenneth McLaughlin’s 1987 book
Cambridge: The Making of a Canadian
The P&H Milling complex on King City, the brothers, along with their in-law
Street West in Preston continues Samuel Bricker, had made the perilous
to play an important role in the trek north by horseback, with American
local economy. silver dollars sewn into small leather
The company, a long-time Cambridge bags, and more money packed in oak kegs
Chamber of Commerce member, has been and fastened to a wagon while the men
manufacturing quality wheat and pulse- rode alongside with muzzle-loaders.
based products and delivering them John Erb had purchased 20 lots, totaling
nationwide from this location since 2009, 7,500 acres, and founded his mills and
carrying on a tradition that has been then later a general store, in the ideal
occurring on this same site for more than location where the Great Road from the
200 years. town of Dundas crossed the Speed River. A
In fact, P&H Milling operates on the wise businessman, Erb continually would
Region of Waterloo’s oldest continuously not permit any urban development on
operating industrialist site which can the south side of the river whose steady
trace its roots back to 1806 when Preston low assisted his business thanks to the
founder John Erb established the area’s construction of a nearby dam. A survey
first gristmill. The mill, located next to a of the area for further development took
sawmill he built the previous year along place a ter his death in 1832. His son, John
Erb Jr., inherited his father’s business.
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