CASHMERE

NAME: CASHMERE COUNTY: ONTARIO ROADS: 2WD GRID: CLIMATE: Snow in winter BEST TIME TO VISIT: Spring summer or fall

COMMENTS: REMAINS: Today the site is covered with cornfields. The only firm evidence of the old settlement is the cemetery.

Cashmere was an early community that dates from 1825 along the banks of the Thames. By 1860 the town claimed a number of grist and saw mills, a blacksmith shop, a sash factory, a cabinetmaker, a general store and a population of one hundred residents. Located in a flood plain beside the Thames River, Cashmere was prone to spring floods. In 1876 an early breakup of ice on the river left the village under five feet of water. Combined with the arrival of the railroads elsewhere, the town was doomed. In the 1880s a visitor described Cashmere as a village in ruins.

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