Articles

James Crocket Wilson was born in Ireland in 1841 the son of Samuel Wilson and Elizabeth Crocket. They arrived in Montreal in the spring of 1842, five years before the Irish potato famine hit. While his father had no marketable skills upon their arrival, he taught himself the rudiments of carpentry and mechanics and eventually landed employment with the Grand Trunk Railway making railway cars. He is credited with the design of the first railway snowplough.

A number of the place-names in the mid- to upper Laurentians have come down to us from the original human inhabitants, the Weskarinis Algonquins. This tribe lived principally along the Ottawa River and its Laurentian tributaries, the Lièvre, the Petite Nation, the Rouge and the North. We can only imagine their lives, small family groups living in a hierarchy dominated by ancient traditions and coloured by myth. The summer must have been a time of plenty and of celebration.

While Sir John Johnson left his imprint on the county of Argenteuil in the western corner of the Laurentians, another British hero of the American War of Independence, Sir Francis Rawdon, was honoured in the creation of a Loyalist settlement on the eastern flank. For the entire article, click here: http://www.ballyhoo.ca/placenames/Rawdon.shtml

Thanks to an email I received from Donna Girard of the Shawbridge United Church, I had the pleasure of meeting a few members of the Shaw family. I learned that the Shaw's family name comes from the Shatten clan of Ireland, but that they crossed over to the region of Argyll in Scotland so long ago that, even though their descendants moved back to Ireland in the 1300's, and left there for Canada in 1827, they still consider themselves to be partly of Scottish extraction.

Sir William Johnson was the superintendent of northern Indians based in New York in the 1750's and 60's and was a significant military leader during the Seven Years' War. His particular strength was that he had the confidence of the Six Nations of the Iroquois. He was also a shrewd businessman and established one the greatest fortunes in the 13 Colonies prior to the creation of the United States. He brought his son John with him on his military campaigns and John became a respected military leader in his own right. Around 1752 Sir William took a young Mohawk teenager in as his consort.

According to the Commission de toponymie, Quebec's official naming agency, the township of Howard, created in 1871, was named to honour Sir Frederick Howard, fifth Earl of Carlisle. Howard was Commissioner of the Colonies during the very difficult period of the American War of Independence and was sent to the colonies in the 1770's to try to pacify the Americans. Despite the resulting war and the creation of the United States, his mission demonstrated that he was a very capable man. He succeeded in getting an audience and in commencing dialogue.

After the signing of La Grande Paix in 1701, ending the French and Indian Wars, the Sulpicians set up a mission at Lake of Two Mountains ostensibly to maintain peace between the Iroquois and the Algonquins. In exchange for this noble and selfless act the French crown gave the Sulpicians exclusive fur-trading rights to the territory. The Sulpicians sold off these rights to French entrepreneurs and did their best to convert the Iroquois and Algonquin to Catholicism.

We call it the town of Weir, but its real name is the Municipality of Montcalm. Even in the phone book, however, it barely clings to its real name. In the Municipal listings in the blue pages the town hall (Hôtel de Ville) is usually listed with its address, most of the time marked as being in the town that is being described. An example of this can be seen in the listing for Prévost, which is identified as being on Curé Labelle Boulevard in Prévost.

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The coming of the railway in the 1890s opened up the Laurentians to skiers who had previously had to content themselves with cross-country skiing on Mount Royal. Shawbridge became “the gateway to the Laurentians”.

Surrounded by birch trees, stands this old militia barracks and drill hall built c.1830. Local names listed in the ranks were those of Sharpes, Copping, Tinkler, and Rowan, all familiar names in the community today. Local militias were set up during a time when Canada was threatened by rebellion from within and invasion from the United States.

One of the best preserved and most attractive of Morin Heights’ old houses is the home of Augustin-Norbert Morin, built in 1860. Its mansard roof and two-storey design mark it as a classic example of French-Canadian domestic architecture of the period.

What is heritage? Webster's defines it as "property that is or can be inherited; something handed down from one's ancestors or the past; a characteristic, culture, or tradition." In its broadest sense, it would seem that heritage can include virtually everything we receive from our predecessors -- even those things that we consider as bad or negative.

Place names often seem obscure or even random, but most of the time, when the name was selected, the people choosing took their tasks very seriously. Even so, some of our townships were named for people who have since been forgotten. Although Beresford has not remained in our consciousness, his role in the Peninsular War on the Iberian Peninsula between 1808 and 1814 was crucial in the eventual defeat of Napoleon. For the entire article, click here: https://www.ballyhoo.ca/natural-history.html

The Commission de Toponymie names three pioneers who contributed to the founding of Brownsburg, George Brown, Daniel Smith and Arthur Howard. Neither Smith nor Howard had anything to do with the original concessions or settlement though. Their roles were played much later. In 1885, the Colt Firearms Company of Connecticut sent Howard and a Gatling gun up to the Canadian Militia to help put down the Métis uprising in the North-West Territories. He was hailed as a hero out west, where he met the Hon. J.J.C. Abbott of St. Andrews East, the future Prime Minister of Canada.

In the late 1870's the Laurentians was experiencing a period of growth and prosperity. A Canadian currency had been created, successfully stabilizing trade, and the railway era was in full swing. As a result, lumber was becoming a more important product along the routes serviced by rail. Up until the trains arrived, the lumber industry was more dependent upon the river systems, and that meant that the forests further away were in less demand.

Reverend Théophile Thibodeau was not a typical priest. He assumed responsibility for the parish of Ste-Agathe-des-Monts in 1878 and, while he was loved and respected in his parish and is credited with the colonisation of Archambault township and the construction of a chapel, his real passion was his homestead. It consisted of a large portion of a peninsula in Ste- Agathe's Lac des Sables known today as Greenshields' Point. As a result, four years after assuming his parish responsibilities, he managed to resign and return home.

In 1891, Viscount Émile Ogier d'Ivry passed away in Chêne-de-C?ur, France, leaving behind his wife Angèle and their three children. Angèle's biggest challenge as the dowager of an important family was to make sure the children established themselves appropriately. Raoul, her eldest son and the new Viscount had suffered from cerebral meningitis as a teenager and his intellectual ability had remained that of a 14-year-old. He was in his late twenties, and with his handicap he was not the ideal head of the family.

A glance down Metcalfe St. reveals the Protestant church, the English elementary school, and many houses built by English-speakers. This is the late 19th century home of the Crowes who ran the saw mill and general store. It is said that when the saw mill caught fire, the pile of sawdust burned for twenty years.

The first known non-Indian to penetrate the Arundel area was English-born Stephen Jakes Bevan, who made his living hunting and trapping furs as early as the 1820s. Settlers did not arrive in this area until much later. In 1857, Sidney Bellingham, MLA for Argenteuil, who did surveys and encouraged settlement, was given a large grant of land.