Articles

The first settlers who were granted land in the Eastern Townships promised to build grist mills and roads within the first two years of settlement. There were few people more important to a settlement than the miller. The village mill was the link between farm and industry.

While workers elsewhere were suffering the work shortages and poverty of the worst part of the Great Depression, the "Three Villages" in the early 1930s were enjoying full employment.

Hunter’s Mills is situated on a side-road about mid-way between Stanbridge East and Frelighsburg, along Route 237. Built up around a small waterfall on the Pike (Brochets) River, Hunter's Mills takes its name from the Hunter family, who ran a woollen mill at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Route 247, between Beebe Plain and the Fitch Bay Narrows, is an undulating, winding stretch of road with some lovely unspoiled scenery, picturesque farms, and splendid views of Owl’s Head, across Lake Memphremagog. It’s a beautiful drive.

Although Massawippi is by no means a ghost town, the village is a long way from the vibrant little community it once was. Situated at the junction of Routes 208 and 143, about midway between Stanstead and Lennoxville, the village’s origins date back to the beginning of the 1800s.

A hamlet in Potton Township, Vale Perkins, or East Potton, as it was once known, was named after Samuel Perkins who settled in this vicinity in the 1790s.

Built in 1875, Potton Springs Hotel and its famous sulphur springs attracted thousands of guests from all over eastern North America. The most important local attraction in its day, the spa had its own railway station and post office.

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Canada is often called the land of the maple. Indeed, the maple leaf is our national emblem. The Eastern Townships is one of the areas in Canada best suited for maple syrup production. In fact, over half of the North American crop was, and still is, produced in the Province of Quebec.

The 19th century saw the growth of agricultural societies all over the Eastern Townships.

Cows were milked in the morning and evening. Before the advent of electricity and milking machines, the chore had to be done by hand. It took about an hour for two or three people to milk twenty cows.

During the winter, when the ground was frozen and covered with snow, the men and boys of the farm would take their axes and cross cut saws and drive their teams of horses into the woods. Since the foliage was all gone, the underbrush was not thick, so the teams could move about with relative ease in the forest.

Apples have been cultivated for the past four thousand years. They were introduced to North America from Europe by the early colonists in both New England and Canada. It has been recorded that the first apples in North America were grown in Acadia in 1635.

Before the invention of modern refrigeration techniques, cutting blocks of ice from frozen lakes and streams was an important wintertime task for local farmers.

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.