Articles

When American Hezekiah Clark arrived in the area of Lachute on the North River in the 1790s with his family and other pioneers, it was a wilderness. Settled by Americans who had been uncomfortable living with seigneurial law, and Scots moving up the North River from the St. Andrews East area, a village soon developed along the river near the rapids. But it wasn’t until the coming of the railway that the village became an important centre.

Pioneers trekked on foot and by ox-cart from Berthierville and l’Assomption to the wilderness that would become Rawdon. These people of Scots, English, French, and mostly Irish ancestry arrived as early as 1817. Seen in the foreground is local historian Beverly Copping Prud’homme, a descendant of the Coppings who came in 1819. Beverly fondly remembers her grandfather’s steam-run mill.