Articles

Vestiges of our past disappear all the time. Or they are altered beyond recognition. Countless historic landmarks have vanished from Quebec’s landscape over the years. Particularly susceptible is our architectural heritage.

An important part of the history of the French village of Ste. Agathe in the treatment there of sufferers of the dread disease tuberculosis. Two English-speakers made an imprint here: Mortimer Davis and D. Lorne McGibbon.

This beautiful stone house on the North River was constructed as a mill in 1831 by the McOuats, and transformed into a house five years later. The McOuats, prominent in the early commercial life of Lachute, ran saw mills on Davis Creek, a foundry which made paper mill machinery, and a hardware store on Main Street which boasted the first plate glass window in Lachute.

Brownsburg was named for George Brown who settled here in 1818 and built mills before 1820. Robert Morrison, from Scotland via Grenville, set up a three-storey woollen mill on Middle Creek which was subsequently run by his sons William and Albert. It closed in the 1930s.

The railway came to Arundel in the 1890s, serving Piedmont, Montfort, Arundel and Huberdeau. The station, built c. 1912, eventually became part of the CNR system. Seen here is David Flanagan, who is the present mayor of Arundel and one of the prime movers in the preservation of the old railway station.

This old schoolhouse, built c.1880 near the land of Arundel’s first settler William Thomson, had as its students the grandfathers of some of the people who inhabit the Township today. It is now a residence.

From sixteen years of age, in 1905, Osias Renaud worked at the sawmill built by Anaclat Marier on the Tour du Lac. The water flowing out of Lac des Sables drove the mill. It is hard to imagine today that the outflow of the lake could keep 12 men working; twelve families fed. The Parent brothers, who had acquired the mill, installed a new 40 horsepower turbine around that time, and milled flour as well as wood. The Parents also maintained a full general store selling animal feed, hay, flour, groceries, metal work, piping and even dry goods. In the winter, the men would log.

Alter and Sima Levine arrived in Montreal in 1903 along with their seven children. They met others here who, like them, had fled the pogroms in Russia. Their new country was full of hope and freedom. There was no dark authoritarian presence watching their moves, no pogroms, and the immigrants could freely share their stories, hopes and fears. Almost drunk with a sense of freedom, a number of these new Canadians decided to establish a commune off in the countryside where they could farm and reorganise their world.

The North River's name can be traced back to the time of the granting of the first seigniory of Argenteuil in 1682. The focal area was at its mouth where it joins the Ottawa River and the early maps show the North River with the West River flowing into it. G. R. Rigby in his 1964 history of Lachute notes that early surveyors marked La Chute (The Falls) on the North just upstream of where the West joins it.

Dr. J. Roddick Byers contracted tuberculosis in Sherbrooke, where, he later acknowledged, he had been overworking, delivering four babies a night and taking no time off. He took the rest cure at the Trudeau sanitarium in Saranac Lake, New York, where he developed a good relationship with Dr. Hugh Klinghorn, an ex-patient himself who served on the ward and was devoted to the study of tuberculosis. For the entire article, click here: http://www.ballyhoo.ca/history/DrJRoddick.shtml

The town of Val David, the first settlement north of Ste. Adele, had its post office named Mont Morin in 1873, in honour of A.N. Morin. The first few families, the Ménards and Dufresnes, were larger than life, both figuratively and physically. Two Ménard brothers married Dufresne sisters and the Dufresne brother did right by a Ménard sister. It is no surprise that the Ménards' mother became known far and wide as La Mère Ménard. Though smaller than her sons, she was about six feet tall and was a woman to be reckoned with.

Ste. Agathe, a sleepy farming village in the hills, became a railroad boomtown with the arrival of the train. These big, snorting steam engines captured the hearts of people and changed the social structure everywhere in the world. More than a railroad town, Ste. Agathe became a vacation destination for the builders of this new society, including the railroad men. For the entire article, click here: http://www.ballyhoo.ca/history/LordShaughnessy.shtml

According to Quebec’s Commission de toponymie, the chain of mountains known as the Laurentians (les Laurentides in French) extends from Lake Témiscamingue on the Ontario border all the way across Quebec to Labrador. Geologically, the Laurentians were formed over a billion years ago and constitute Quebec’s portion of that vast u-shaped region around Hudson Bay known as the Canadian Shield. The Laurentians are famous for their lakes, mountains, and abundant natural resources. They are also home to some of the finest skiing in eastern North America.

Théophile Thibodeau became curé of the parish of Ste. Agathe in 1878 and simultaneously homesteaded a large peninsula at the far end of Lac des Sables. He was the community’s spiritual leader during Ste. Agathe’s most difficult years. He inherited a parish that was just discovering that the fields would not yield, and the local farmers were either leaving or looking for other ways to make a living. Several of these hard-working pioneers built hotels.

In 1894, Dr. Camille Laviolette of Laval University convinced the Provincial Government to set aside a large parcel of Laurentian property for the creation of a forestry reserve. His plan was to build a tuberculosis sanitarium in a completely protected environment. The proposal, originally drafted in 1893, was accepted in July 1894. Dr. Laviolette had studied in Paris, London and Berlin. He was a member of la Société Française d’Otologie et de Laryngologie de Paris, a specialist at l’Institution des Sourdes et Muettes, and was a medical doctor at the University of Laval.

Dr. Grignon, in his Album historique de la Paroisse de Ste-Agathe-des-Monts suggests that Octavien Rolland gave rise to the huge influx of wealthy businessmen who purchased large properties in our area. In French, these people are called villégiateurs. It translates as “people who stay, sojourn or vacation in the country”, but to date I have failed to find an English noun that expresses the same meaning.

In 1895 Alfred Baumgarten acquired the St. Aubin farm on the Tour du Lac. This was the property from which the small village received its first public water supply through wooden pipes, 17 years earlier, the property that Dr. Lallier, Curé Thibodeau and Edouard St. Aubin exploited through La Compagnie de l’aquaduc de Ste. Agathe des Monts. For the entire article, click here: https://www.ballyhoo.ca/regional-history.html

The story of Douglas Lorne McGibbon is the story of the forgotten benefactor of Ste-Agathe and of tuberculosis treatment in Canada. D. Lorne McGibbon may well have given all he had to Ste. Agathe in his fight against the disease. For the entire article, click here: http://www.ballyhoo.ca/history/DLorneMcGibbon.shtml

Sir Mortimer Barnet Davis was born in Montreal on February 6, 1866 to Samuel Davis and Minnie Falk Davis. The senior Davis couple had emigrated from England in 1861 and Mortimer was their third son, one of seven children. He attended Montreal High School and upon graduation joined his family's cigar business: S. Davis and Sons. By the time he was 21, he was already someone to contend with. He experimented with tobacco and is credited with having established its cultivation in Canada.

Laurentian development did not all take place around the big lakes like Lac des Sables and Lake Manitou. Many people came here for the wilderness pleasures available on some of the smaller lakes, surrounded by many acres of what was once farmland, but which has now grown back into extensive forest holdings. It began with the arrival of the train in 1892, and among the families that chose that route were several of the descendents of John Molson and Sarah Inslay Vaughan.