The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

AT THE FORKS OF THE GRAND gypsum, other businesses in Paris were stimulated, and the growth of the village encouraged. As a result of all these activities, the hamlet grew rapidly into a village. Concerning the beginnings of this growth, Hiram wrote in January, 1830, in the aforementioned letter to Horace: There is prospect of a blacksmith, wheelwright, cabinet-maker and joiner, each building this season, also a carding machine to be erected, merchant shop and distillery. A shoemaker is now in actual operation, and what is still more flattering, within the past six months there have been three babies born upon the premises, and daily expectation of a fourth - all are well. Shall we not people a city of ourselves shortly? If so much be done the first six months, what will you expect for the next six months? During the next six months, the growth of the village was slow but steady. In 1i83i1, Adam Fergusson wrote: We stopped to rest our horses at a new village called Paris, belong- ing to a very active individual by the name of Capron, and having good water power and other advantages. It promises, ere long, to become a place of some importance. In 1832, the Reverend William Proudfoot, after one of his visits, recorded that: There are a saw and grist and wool mills. It is just two years since the first stake was driven in, and now there are about 70 large frame houses and many stores. And in 1833, during his second tour of Canada, Fergusson wrote: After dinner we pursued our journey upon the west side of the [Grand] river through a great deal of very light land to Paris. Paris seems to have its share of growing importance, but has for this season suffered considerable inconvenience from the bridge having been swept away in a flood. We are told that it would, ere long, be replaced. The village can boast two tailors, two gay dressmakers, besides a post office, several stores, etc. The tavern was in a temporary dwelling and our accommodation consequently poor; but the landlord was remarkably civil and desirous to please. At first most of the people lived in the Upper Town, where lots lying north of Dundas Street were bought from Capron, and south mostly from Robert Roseburgh. But after the construction of the dams on the Nith, the Lower Town became increasingly important. Naturally the mill-owners and their workers decided to live near their places of work. The owners, for the most part, lived in large houses on Broadway Street, Charlotte, and Emily -in other words, on Snob or Quality Hill. The majority of the mill-workers and farm-laborers lived in slab houses (the slabs were given free by the saw-mills) on West River Street (Slabtown) and Distillery Hill. Dis- tillery Hill was the south and west bank of the Nith between its mouth and the present Lions' Park. It got its name from two dis- tilleries that were once near the river's edge, and it was first occupied 22