In the early 1820s, Upper Canada was still recovering from a very close call in the war of 1812-14. The Empire and its Canadian colony had driven back the United States. Isaac Brock had captured Detroit and yes, in the end, the British, had even chased the enemy home and burnt the White House. Still, the war was at best a standoff. In Upper Canada it had been a close call. Clearly conflict might well start up again anytime; security was now constantly on the mind of the Upper Canada’s citizens. Something needed to be done to ensure there would be no repetition and if there were, we would be ready.

 The British Colonial office realized that to survive the Canadas must grow.  The new country to the south seemed still to be considering that taking the Canadas from Britain was part of their destiny and at the right time, it would be just ’a mere matter of marching’ as Jefferson had said. The colony must be able defend itself. Britain was a long way off and the United States were all too close by.

Settlers, loyal British, Scottish, and even Irish settlers, were needed. They in turn would need all the necessities for a farming life-- ironware, kettles, plows, and stoves, and perhaps even cannons. It all could have been shipped across the Atlantic but who could be sure it would arrive in time? Iron was essential, so that the colony could meet its own demands. Iron lying across on the other side of the Atlantic was no use here.  Blast furnaces were needed in the colony, not thousands of miles away. But where exactly?

In 1816 a most extraordinary man thrashing his way along the south shore of Crowe Lake in eastern Upper Canada, came upon an answer. It was hard going but not nearly as hard going as this particular British Vice Admiral and explorer had experienced before. There wasn’t a lot of the British Colonies that he would miss tramping on in a lifetime of service. William Fitzwilliam Owen was born in September of 1774. He was born illegitimately, his father being William Owen and his mother being recorded as ‘perhaps Sarah Haslam’. That was an issue that mattered in those days. Four years later his father died and he was orphaned. Whatever his exact parentage was, he had clearly inherited salt water in his veins.

At the age of thirteen a family friend arranged a position for him as Midshipman on the naval Ship HMS Culloden. The young Owen was notoriously unmanageable and spent much of his time in service but some his time in lockup. He suffered at least two demotions for his conduct. Captured by the French he spent 21 months as a prisoner of war and was lucky to be traded into freedom for a French prisoner. Owen had served under Horatio Nelson himself, who was so impressed that he gave Owen a ship of his own. Now he was on his way to a life of adventure. With various commands he saw much of the world exploring and fighting his way through the East and West Indies, the Maldives, and Mauritius.

In May of 1815 William Fitzwilliam Owen was summoned to serve on the Great Lakes.   He had a recognized genius at charting and was sent to sort out and survey the enormous puzzle of the thousand islands. Annoyed at any whiff of interference from the bureaucrats who might slow his surveying down, he declared, ‘Give me my health, a Blue Coat Boy, a Boat of 70 tons, Twenty Men and a Cockle Shell Jolly Boat and I would do it all whilst they are preparing for it.’

Owen got the job done in short order. But there was no standing still, it was on to the north and west, some eighty miles into the bush and towards what would, because of his findings, become, Charles Hayes’ Irontown.

As Owen and his assistants trekked through the wilderness they described, as they were obliged to do, any large mineral anomaly. Marmora was named after a point jutting into the east shore of Crowe Lake in the back townships 30 Miles from the nearest town. Close by was a hill  of marble, hence the name Marmora. And not too far away, across Crowe Lake, there was a hill of iron. Six miles away, across the lake, at a place that would become Blairton, Owen discovered a mountain of iron ore, a supply which he declared would to be ‘inexhaustible’ and sufficient for the needs of the growing colony and the whole Empire indefinitely.

Marmora, however, was also not without disadvantages. It was way back in the woods. There was no easy access. You had a few beautiful waterways to ship ore and timber around the site, but only once you tracked there through the trackless forests. It was a place 30 miles from the Lake Ontario transportation system. All the fire stone to line the furnaces, all the supplies, and all the workers would have to be brought across that Atlantic to the St. Lawrence, past the rapids, up the trails and into the wild. Building a thirty-mile road as a final link just to get to his land, was Hayes’ first task.

This sort of project had never been tried in Upper Canada before and it needed an adventurer to take it on. Governments themselves are hesitant and tight-fisted adventurers today and they were then. The best way would be to encourage a private entrepreneur and they finally found one in Charles Hayes. As usual for the times the lure was free land and Hayes was offered 8,000 acres. Nevertheless, he would come to Marmora as a wealthy man and would leave five years later as a much less wealthy man. During that time, he did something no business advisor would recommend, something grand and unique. He established a working and unique Irontown.

Although in his enthusiasm he would never foresee it, Hayes’ Canadian venture was doomed from the start. In the lingo of our times, it would never have survived the feasibility study. Housing a couple of hundred plus Irish Catholic workers, setting up two massive Blast Furnaces to produce industry’s heaviest product, way back, so many miles from any customers, and with no real way to get to them was never going to be an easy proposition.

What is remarkable is that, in this wilderness, he managed to get Upper Canada’s first grand industrial enterprise going at all. And go it did. By spring of 1823 Hayes could write to Lieutenant Governor Peregrine Maitland , “My Works are in full operation and I am happy to tell you doing well--shall we see you during the Winter?--The place is now worth seeing and I suppose they are the largest Iron Works now in Ame­rica--I wish I could add the Richest’.”

The work was dirty, hard, and dangerous, right from mining of ore at Blairton, its transport by barge across Crowe Lake to Marmora, and through to the blast. To start with the ore was hand drilled with one man swinging a sled hammer while another held the iron bar and twisted it with each blow.  The former was said to require strong arms and a strong back, the later was said to require long arms and a weak mind. Sometimes two such men were recruited to be holders.  Once the hole was clear, it was charged with black powder, fused and set off. At that point everyone ran. The unpredictable discharges of gunpowder sent boulders flying and shudders through the rock. Dynamite had not yet been invented. Those who set off the detonation basically lit it and scurried for their lives. The safety fuse was still 10 years in the future and you could never be sure how long a fuse would last. Don’t leave slowly and just as important don’t come back too soon or you may fall victim to a ‘lazy charge’.

John MacTaggart spent ‘Three Years in Canada’ before going back to London to publish his book of that name. Speaking of hard rock workers, he reported, “Of course, many of them were blasted to pieces by their own shots, others killed by stones falling on them. I have seen heads, arms, and legs blown about in all directions; and it is in vain for overseers to warn them of their danger, for they pay no attention

During blasting ‘campaigns’ that could last for months, the massive furnaces were top loaded with tons of ore, charcoal, and limestone flux and fired to 3000 degrees. For three years, with Hayes’ giant water wheel powering the billows the blast furnaces kept pouring out iron for ballast, stoves, and potash kettles. Hayes even produced a couple of iron cannons. He declared them to be ‘suitable to defend the Kingdom’ as needed, presumably to keep the Americans at bay.

All too soon reality set in for Charles Hayes. His capital was burning as if he had shovelled it directly into the furnaces. The weather was poor, the roads were usually impassible, the mosquitos were belligerent, the government was aloof, and the workers were discontent.

Charles Hayes returned to Britain apparently to refinance his enterprise, but although he yearned to come back and reclaim his town, he was never to return.

Charles Hayes had started Upper Canada’s greatest industry and its first mining town. And when he left, he left behind an enterprise which for decades would teeter between failure and success. 

But he also left a community which has gone on successfully for two centuries whatever changes of fortune were wrought by the times.