My Great Great Great Great Great Grandfather, William Porter Welton, was an axe maker up in Canada. Last year I went up to his hometown, Merrickville and saw the lot where his “factory” was. He worked on an island in the middle of the Rideu (sp?) river and used the waterfall for power. We found a historian who wrote a book on axe makers and got a picture of a Welton Axe. Now, I’d like to find one for myself. I wrote to the various antique dealers in Merrickville and asked them to keep an eye out for one of his axes. Other than that, I’m not sure what I can do to track one down. William moved his family from Merrickville to Mount Forest, Ontario later on so I could also check there. It’s fun to take a vacation up to another country to find the old homesteads. I also searched the cemetery in Merrickville to try to find any more information but it didn’t reveal anything. It’s also neat because Merrickville is directly north of where I live right now in Syracuse, NY and Mount Forest is directly north of where I will be living in a month in Lockport, NY.
