Thompson Smith's mill was the second largest in the area, next to the Sage mill at Bell Ewart. Smith added a second mill at Bradford, as well as contracting with Durham's mill in Barrie. Only a decade after the arrival of the railway at Lake Simcoe, pine for the mills was running low. In 1867 H. W. Sage persuaded Thompson Smith to join with him in the formation of the Rama Timber Transport Company, to supply Lake Simcoe mills with timber. With logs coming from as distant as Head Lake, Smith put up a third mill, south of the Holland River bridge in 1869.