Early in its history, Welland was a town full of burgeoning industries, which included metalworks, mills and lumber yards. One such yard was located along what is now Niagara Street and belonged to the Crow family. The roots of the Crow-Groh family stretch back to the Mennonite families of Pennsylvania that were forced to immigrate to Canada for refusing to take part in the American Revolution.
The Grohs came from Lancaster County as part of a second wave of Mennonite families that came to settle the Niagara Peninsula in 1788, two years after the first wave. In order to receive a land grant from the Crown, the family’s last name was anglicized to Crow. Fifth-generation descendants of the family in Canada, brothers John and William Crow were born in Pelham in 1856 and 1859, respectively, to Jacob Crow, one of the town’s prominent lumber merchants.
Jacob and his family moved to Welland in June 1874. While John would later enter the grocery and hardware business that would eventually take on his name, and later become mayor of Welland, Jacob and William followed a different path. Shortly after moving, Jacob decided to buy a lumber mill and yard at 52 North Main St.
(later Niagara Street). Formerly owned by a Mr. Crosby, the mill was powered by water, but Jacob converted it to run on steam, expanded the number of workers to run it and brought William into the trade to assist him.
In October of the same year, the mill and an adjoining yard were badly damaged by fire. The Crows reworked their business to operate as a storage and sale yard, foregoing the mill entirely, which they never rebuilt. As his father aged into his 90s, William took on running the business, shown in today’s 1902 photo, and branched out into general lumber retail.
Dealing in manufactured lumber of all dimensions under both father and son, the business specialized in handling matched flooring, dressed lumber, siding, wainscoting, and lath and shingles, as well as supplying coal, moulding, sheathing, doors, sashes and blinds. Following Jacob’s death in 1904, William continued running the business until his sudden death in 1907. It was bought a year later by Samuel L.
Lambert, a prominent local Welland businessperson who would also later own and operate the Reeta Hotel, Lambert Skating Rink, and the Lambert and Capitol theatres. Lambert ran the business as a planing mill and coal supply operation until it was destroyed by fire in 1916. Rather than rebuilding, Lambert opted to move his lumber operation to Burgar Street, then Fitch Street and, eventually, to Port Colborne.
The site of the former Crow family lumber business housed several other business operations over the years until the last one closed in 2015. In later years he site continued to be occupied by various businesses, including several tire shops and shoe repair businesses. The last business to hold the address was Boomer’s Market and Boomerang’s Antiques and Collectibles.
Today it is a residential property..
