During the opening ceremony of Heritage Festival 2023, the Burk's Falls & District Historical Society provided a dedication to the Knight Brother Municipal Park in Burk's Falls.  The Park is located at 140 Dimsdale Street.

When we think of the Knight Bros, we should perhaps consider two different aspects of their legacy. The first is the people – who were the Knight Brothers? The second is the business bearing their name that began in the earliest days of Burks’s Falls, 140 years ago.

The Knight Brothers were Henry, the eldest, born in 1855 and his younger brother Walter, born in 1860. They were the only children of Henry Knight and Sarah Cameron and they lived in Clerkenwell, London, England. The family emigrated to Canada in the 1860’s.

They settled first in Watt Township, Muskoka, near Skeleton Lake, but by 1875, Henry had moved to Armour Township, near the falls of the Magnetawan River, becoming one of the earliest settlers in what would become Burk’s Falls. He was followed shortly after by his father and his brother Walter. His father became known as Cameron Knight. He had been trained as a mechanic in England and Cameron Knight became the first teacher in the new village of Burk’s Falls.

The two brothers started a sawmill business beside the north bank of the river in the early 1880’s and in 1885 took over the Armstrong Bros. sawmill on the south bank of the river, just below the falls.

Henry and Walter each married two sisters from the Winans family of Simcoe Co. in the 1880’s and they settled in Burk’s Falls. Henry had a house on Yonge St. and Walter lived beside the river overlooking the mill.

Walter died in an accident in 1912 at the age of 52 and Henry retired in 1920 at the age of 65 and went to live in St. Catharines, where he died in 1932.

Henry donated his Yonge St. house to The East Parry Sound Children’s Aid Society, to be named the Gertrude Knight Memorial Childrens Home, in honour of his late wife.

In the earliest years of Burk’s Falls, the Knight Bros Co. grew from a simple sawmill to become the most prominent business for miles around. They had a sawmill, a finishing mill, drying kilns, and a factory which made flooring, doors and window frames, paneling, office furniture and many other wood products. They also produced electricity for the village. At its peak, Knight Bros. was shipping their products all over Canada and into the United States, employing dozens of workers.

In 1928, the business was sold, first becoming Clark, Howe, Watters and Knight Bros. and later the Algonquin Corporation. but the depression soon hit and business declined rapidly. By 1933 the factory lay dormant. Only two years later, in 1935, the business was resurrected as Thomson-Heyland Lumber, which continued for another forty years.

A testament to the foresight of the two pioneer brothers.

If you would like to learn more about the Knight Brothers, please visit the Watt Century Farm House Heritage Centre at 827 Chetwynd Road, where we have displays and artifacts from the Knight Bros.

To learn more about the Knight Brothers Lumber Mill, please click here.

Prepared and delivered by Mike Quinton for the Burk’s Falls District Historical Society.