Author William D. (Bill) Finlayson is the senior most archaeologist in Ontario archaeology with well over 50 years of experience in the field. He has always believed in the importance of sharing his archaeological findings with the general public to provide additional information about our local history. Our Lands Speak series, created by Bill, reflects his ardent commitment to do just that.

In volume 3, The Archaeology of Two Whitchurch-Stouffville Farmsteads, he shares that in the second half of the 19th century, John Yake Sr., a prominent Stouffville businessman, purchased two parts of Lot 32, Concession 10, in what is now the Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville. John Yake Sr. rented the small house at the western end of the lot, which eventually became the Yake site. John Yake Jr. lived on the western part of the lot, initially in the large house which became the Windmill site, and ultimately in a new brick house which was still occupied at the time of our excavations.

The Yake and Windmill sites were situated on former agricultural fields of the dwellers of the Mantle site, a large Indigenous village occupied in the sixteenth or early seventeenth centuries and currently located less than a km to the northwest of Lot 32. Excavations of the Windmill site recovered a spear point about 10,000 years old, which was likely collected by the Yake family while farming their land and subsequently discarded when filling in the cellar of the early log house at the Windmill site.