William Dickson, originally from Scotland and a cousin of Thomas Clarke and Robert Hamilton, settled in Niagara and became a lawyer. He bought Block 1 of the Six Nations Grant with the intention to build a community there. So he asked Absalom Shade to help him. Shade was a 22-year-old builder and Dickson wanted him to build a sawmill and gristmill that would be the foundation for the new community. In 1816, at the junction of Mill Creek and the Grand River, they found the perfect spot. Dickson decided to call the whole block of land Dumfries after his hometown in Scotland.

A man of great foresight and ability, Shade ensured that the sawmill was operating by the time the millwright who was to build the gristmill arrived on site with the millstones. This meant that the sawmill could provide the lumber required by the gristmill. By 1819, the gristmill, called the Dumfries Mill, was working. Dickson called on John Telfer to go to Scotland to recruit settlers for his land, and by 1832 every plot of land was taken. At first, the community was called Shade's Mills by the settlers but eventually became known by its official name, Galt, after the Commissioner for the Canada Company, John Galt.

At about the same time as he was building the saw and grist mills, Absalom Shade built a home and store in the new settlement. After he completed the mills, he built a bridge over the Grand River near his store and followed this with a distillery. In 1824, actual cash being in short supply, he built the Red Store, where farmers could trade their produce or use credit to buy goods for themselves and their farms. The Red Store was at the southeast end of the bridge.

Also near the bridge, he built a pier for barges that would transport his produce down the Grand River. He was one of the main pillars behind the Grand River Navigation Company, which built canals along the Grand River to give Galt and Brantford access to the Great Lakes by water.

In 1832, he built the White Store across the street from the Red Store. The White Store sold goods at a lower price but for cash only. Six years later, he bought the original Dumfries Mill from Dickson but only on condition that, for a period of time, Dickson would sell no property that would be used to compete with Shade's businesses. Was this the original Shadey deal?