Located on Ridge Road just west of Lakeside Road, in the hamlet of Fruitland, is the old mill pond.  In 1835 Ira Hill came to Ontario and purchased 300 acres and built a combined grist and saw mill on the northeast corner of the pond on the property.  When Ira Hill died in 1866, his son Abner took possession of the land and mill.  He in turn sold to Burton Hopkins who continued running the mill and then his sons Archie and Glenn Hopkins took over.  

In the years before electric refrigerators, Glen Hopkins also ran a business of cutting ice on the pond in the winter.  In the early days, it was cut with a saw drawn by a horse, but later a power saw was used.  The ice was cut in big blocks which were kept buried in sawdust in an ice house.  

Ice skating on the mill pond was a very popular sport with both young and old.  The mill was destroyed in a wind storm in 1974, but many folks still remember the picturesque mill and the fun they had skating on the pond.