Likely to have been the first settler in what has been called Hamburgh or New Hamburg, Ontario since about 1840, millwright Josiah Cushman arrived from Germany in the early 1830s. He dammed Smith's Creek and built a sawmill that helped attract others. William Scott, (Lord Campfield in Scotland), now considered to be the founder of New Hamburg, arrived in 1838, after Cushman's death. He renamed Smith's Creek the Nith River, built a new dam and constructed a new lumber sawmill. The mill continued to plane lumber until 1902 when it burned down. The replacement building was a feed mill, later known as B-W Feed and Seed; that entity still exists, now as a sales outlet for feed.