Hamlet of Prospect Hill

Slusser Road between Kilian Road & Pratt Road

Prospect Hill or Papermill is located along the west and east banks of the Tonawanda Creek on Indian Falls and Pratt Roads. A brickyard was located on the west bank, north of the road, on the Groth property. Lyman Groth made and sold jams and jellies. William H. Corbett bought the sawmill at Papermill in May 1844 from Phineas L. Tracy, “subject to the right to maintain a mill dam, six feet high, now built across the Tonawanda Creek, adjoining the Mill.” The log dam has disappeared and the Boy Scouts now have a cabin built on the old foundation of the mill.

Gene Burroughs operated a boat livery east of the bridge just below the old dam at Papermill for nearly twenty-five years. He built seven rowboats and rented them for $1.00 per day. With the destruction of the dams the fishing ended, bringing this business to a close in the later 1940s or early 1950s.