Articles

A good hay crop was vital for the survival of any farm. It was hay that fed the animals over the long winter, when the fields were covered in a deep layer of snow.

After the long Townships winter, spring was the time to do repairs and renovations on the farmhouse and outbuildings. Before the fields could be worked, there was a lot of work to be done.

Apart from Henry Seth Taylor, who built Canada's first steam-powered horseless carriage in 1867, another Eastern Townships man who deserves mention as an early carmaker is George Foote Foss. Born in 1876, Foss was a prosperous mechanic, blacksmith, and bicycle repairman from Sherbrooke. Like Taylor before him, he was also an ingenious tinkerer.

The first man in history to send wireless broadcasts of voice and music, and the inventor of the sonic depth finder, submarine signaling devices, and over 500 patents, was Reginald Fessenden, a native of the Eastern Townships. Born in Brome County in 1866, the son of an Anglican minister, Fessenden spent much of his youth in Ontario.

Henry Seth Taylor was a natural tinkerer. Born in Stanstead in 1833, he loved to experiment with machines, and during his lifetime he is said to have invented a number of things, including the first sofa-bed and an early "talking machine". Taylor is best known, however, for building Canada's first steam-powered car, which he unveiled at the Stanstead Fair in 1867.

Born in Coaticook in 1862 and educated at the Coaticook Academy, Frank Henry Sleeper was the nephew of industrialist Lewis Sleeper, and the son of mechanical inventor Wright Sleeper, both also of Coaticook. From a very early age, Frank Henry Sleeper, like his father, was fascinated by the intricate workings of machinery.

One of the greatest inventors and industrialists of the Eastern Townships, Joseph-Armand Bombardier, was born in Valcourt in 1907 to Anna Gravel and Alfred Bombardier, a farmer turned general merchant. The eldest of eight children, Bombardier, from an early age, combined a talent for tinkering with a passion for machines.

Created in 1954 from the Catholic Séminaire St-Charles Borromée, the French-language Université de Sherbrooke was at first a three-faculty university granting degrees in law, arts, and science.

The first Catholic school for girls to be established in the Eastern Townships was Mont Notre-Dame in Sherbrooke.

Unlike their English Protestant counterparts, in the late nineteenth century, French Catholic schools in the Eastern Townships became increasingly dominated by religious orders. By the early 1900s, schools run by Catholic nuns and brothers were established in most towns of any significant size all across the Townships.

Bishop's University in Lennoxville was founded in 1845 under the sponsorship of the Anglican Bishop of Quebec, George Jehoshaphat Mountain. Chartered to grant degrees in 1853, the school in its early years it was primarily a centre for classical education and the training of the Anglican clergy.

Located in the beautiful Appalachian Mountains, the village of Inverness is remarkable for its rolling landscapes and its roads that wind through valleys and around green hills offering a unique sight on the grounds, the pastures, the brooks and the forests.

Early Steps in Cowansville's Development

About 100 kilometres southeast of Montreal, on the shores of a magnificent five-kilometre wide lake, Knowlton is at once a blooming, shady and festive village, especially during the summer and weekends.

Pioneer schoolhouses were built to accommodate about thirty students from grades one through seven. Most schools were made of wood, with a simple cast-iron wood stove for heating in winter. Outhouses were set apart from the school building or located at the far end of an attached woodshed.

Archibald McKillop, better known as "Blind Bard of Megantic," was born in Loch Ranza, on the Isle of Arran in Scotland, on July 4, 1824. His father, Archibald McKillop collected taxes for the Duke of Hamilton. In April 1829, when a group of Scots from Ranza Log took to crossing of the Atlantic towards Canada on the Caledonia under the leadership of Mr.

Mack Sennett was an innovator of slapstick comedy in film. During his lifetime, he was known as "the King of Comedy." Born Michael Sinnott in Danville, Quebec, in 1880, Sennett was a son of Irish immigrants. His father was a blacksmith in the small Eastern Townships village.

"Brownies, like fairies and goblins, are imaginary little spirits, who are supposed to delight in harmless pranks and helpful deeds. They work and sport while weary households sleep, and never allow themselves to be seen by mortal eyes." --Palmer Cox

Folk art is a general term that can be said to describe art that has been produced by men and women with little or no artistic training. It is the product of natural, if unrefined talent.

Born in the village of Way's Mills in 1902, Orson Wheeler was a professor in the fine arts department at Concordia University in Montreal for much of his professional career. A sculptor by training, he is perhaps best known for his bronze busts of noted Canadians. Wheeler was also a talented designer, however, and produced some 200 architectural models.