Articles

Frederick Simpson Coburn, one of the greatest artists to come out of the Eastern Townships, was born in Melbourne (Richmond) in 1871.

Born in Arthabaska (now a part of Victoriaville) in 1869, Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté is one of Quebec's most celebrated artists. The youngest of ten children, Suzor-Coté studied art in Montreal and Paris. He began his art career as a church decorator with the firm of Joseph-Thomas Rousseau.

A WOMAN WITH A PASSION Born in Brome Township in 1857, Sally Wood had a passion for photography. After learning the art in Montreal's prestigious Notman Studios (the premier photography studio in Canada), Wood worked as a substitute for John A. Wheeler, a photographer based in Knowlton and Cowansville.

Louis-Philippe Hébert, of Acadian background, was born in Sainte-Sophie-de-Halifax in 1850. At age 19, Hébert left his parents' farm to join the Papal Zouaves, an army created by the Catholic Church to defend Rome against the forces of Italian unification. In Europe, Hébert was exposed to a world of art and culture such as he had never seen before.

Landscape painter Aaron Allan Edson was born in 1846 in Stanbridge, Missisquoi County. Studying painting in Montreal, London, and France, Edson became a charter member of the Royal Canadian Academy in 1880.

The son of an English father and a French Canadian mother, William S. Hunter was born in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu (St. John's), Quebec in 1823. Hunter lived for many years in Stanstead, where his wife Nancy Parsons was born.

The Lovell Family of Barnston and Coaticook, Quebec is recognized as one of the most prominent and distinguished families of the Eastern Townships. The surname was originally “Lovewell” which over time evolved in to “Lovell” the form which remains in use today.

British American Land Company: Born in England in 1817, Alexander Galt immigrated to Sherbrooke in 1835 to work for the newly created British American Land Company, which was chartered to settle large tracts of land in the Eastern Townships. Galt rose steadily in the company, eventually becoming high commissioner in 1844, a post he held until 1855.

Born in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts in 1916, Jean-Jacques Bertrand attended the Séminaire de Saint-Hyacinthe and later, the Université de Montréal where he studied law. His political career began in 1948 when, under the banner of Maurice Duplessis' reigning Union Nationale, he was elected to the National Assembly.

To date the only Premier of Quebec native to the Eastern Townships is Daniel Johnson Sr., who was born in Sainte-Anne-de-Danville in 1915. The son of an Irish Catholic father and a French Canadian mother, Johnson first entered provincial politics in 1946 in the by-elections held that year.

Although not an Eastern Townshipper by birth, Joseph-Adélard Godbout adopted the Townships in midlife, buying in 1930 a century-old farmhouse near Frelighsburg, where he was later buried, and where his family still resides.

To date, Louis S. St-Laurent is the only Canadian Prime Minister born in the Eastern Townships. His life began in Compton in 1882. St-Laurent's parents, a French Canadian father and an Irish mother, ran a general store and were of modest means.

Sir Wilfrid Laurier, one of Canada's most illustrious Prime Ministers, spent much of his adult life in the Eastern Townships. Laurier, who was born in Saint-Lin in the Laurentians in 1841, studied law at McGill University where he received his degree in 1864.

The young boy was standing in front of a small wooden table on which laid a birthday cake with four lit candles. You could see the gleam in the little guy’s face, and his underlying smile of knowing that this was his day to be celebrated, and his day alone. Dressed in a clean white shirt, dark slacks, and a clip-on bow tie, we could sense what he was thinking as he continued his bright-eyed stare into the candles. We could almost feel his wonder at what other miracles life would bring, and that this birthday was certainly one of them.

Whether we realize it or not, when travelling through the streets of our towns, we are in fact travelling not only through local history, but in many cases our world history. When we ask ourselves, "What’s in a name?", we are already "en route" to discovering what binds us all today, a proud heritage in our past, whether we were born here or not.

The early history of the Eastern Townships Telephone Company is also the story of Carlos Skinner. A jeweller and watchmaker by trade, and a native of Waterloo, Skinner, according to writer Paul Delaney, was a "man of boundless energy with an abiding curiosity in new scientific developments."

Mail delivery in the Eastern Townships dates to about 1800. At that early date, virtually all of the settlers in the region were recent arrivals from New England. These people were anxious to maintain their ties to their old country and to the friends and family they left behind.

The first newspapers in the Eastern Townships served the New England settlers who populated the region at that time. They provided news (lifted from other papers, and mainly from Europe and the U.S.), political speeches, texts on religion and morality, farming techniques and technological advances, and advertisements and articles of local interest.

Several commercial steamers have operated on Lake Memphremagog over the course of its history. This 44-km (27-mile) international lake, whose southern quarter lies within the state of Vermont, is the longest stretch of navigable water in the Eastern Townships. Newport lies at the south end of the lake, Magog, at the north.

(Continued from Steamers of Lake Memphremagog, Part 2)