420 Trafalgar Road - Home of Herbert A. Ashbury & Lottie Lusk Ashbury

Herbert Ashbury operated the grist mill on SIxteen Mile Creek.

In 1914, Herbert Ashbury purchased a small piece of land owned by the Oakville Basket Factory where his house was built the same year. The factory was a busy enterprise, employing many people from Oakville and producing three quarters of a million baskets per year to hold the large amount of various local crops for transport to the city markets. The factory suffered a disastrous fire in 1920 and was relocated farther north to south of the railway tracks.

Herbert Ashbury would have wanted to live in close proximity to a different busy enterprise though, which was his father's mill located on the river bend down the steep hill and slightly upriver from his newly purchased house.

The Ashbury family owned the Mill from 1900-1927, and Herbert and his brother, Lorne, worked alongside their father. The historic Mill, built in 1827 by William Chisholm, had several owners, including the Chisholm Bros. (1833), Isaac Warcup (1870), Foulds & Shaw (1890), Thomas Ashbury & Sons (1900-1927), and lastly the Hammond Bros. before burning to the ground in 1930.

When the Ashbury family acquired the mill, they installed modern machinery which included the largest overshot wheel in Canada. It must have been quite the sight from the banks of Herbert Ashbury's house around the bend of the river at the top of the steep hill.

Herbert Arthur Ashbury was born in 1876 in London, Ontario to parents Thomas and Sarah. The family, including brother, Lorne, relocated to Blyth before settling in Oakville where father Thomas purchased the Mill. May, a sister of Herbert and Lorne, passed away in 1901 at the age of seven.

Herbert married Lottie Lusk, daughter of Charles Horace Lusk and Jerusha Ann Potter, in 1906 in Oakville. The Lusks and the Potters lived further south on Trafalgar Road where Lusk had his medical practice and Potter built at least three houses and had his shipyard. Herbert and Lottie had three children: Doris (1907), Ivan (1910) and Edwin (1915). They attended St John's United Church where Herbert served as the chair of the finance committee. In 1917 Thomas died and the mill was run by the sons until the untimely death of Herbert in 1927 at the age of 51.