In 1859, when a bulkhead was constructed across the west branch of the Rideau River, the entrepreneur Moss Kent Dickinson and his partner Joseph Merrill Currier obtained the water rights and constructed a stone mill on the shores of the Rideau River. The flour mill, as well as a carding mill, sawmill and a bung factory, also built by Dickinson, helped spur the development of the settlement. The flour mill was purchased in 1946 by Harry Watson and renamed Watson's Mill. It survives as a working museum, with an operational grist mill.