The border separating Quebec’s Eastern Townships from the United States was determined by the terms of the Quebec Act in 1774. At that time, both Canada and the American colonies to the south were dependencies of Great Britain. The border was established – on paper at least -- at 45 degrees north latitude.
Smuggling has been a problem in the Eastern Townships for a long time. At first, there were no customs offices at all. People could buy whatever they pleased in the U.S. and bring it back over the border, no questions asked. In 1821, the government set up a border post at Stanstead. Some people paid the duty, but many continued to smuggle.
In the early 19th century, there were no police, courts, or prisons in the Eastern Townships. The region was a distant frontier, far from the cities of Lower Canada. In theory, the law was enforced by part-time magistrates living in the scattered settlements. In times of emergency, the magistrates were assisted by the local militia.
The St. Albans Raid of October 19, 1864 is one of the most celebrated incidents in Border lore. Considered the northernmost engagement of the American Civil War, it involved about twenty Confederate soldiers who, under the command of a young lieutenant, Bennett Young, carried out a successful raid on three banks in St. Albans, Vermont.
The composite photograph seen here was published as a postcard in 1916 to commemorate the centennial of the first Roman Catholic mass celebrated in Sherbrooke.
Born in 1845 on his parents' farm at Kingscroft, in Barnston Township, Arthur Osmore Norton studied at nearby Barnston Academy. By age 16, Norton was working as a clerk in a local general store. In 1870, he married Helen Richardson of Coaticook. The couple would have two children together.
From 1860 to the early 1900s, the St. Francis Valley was the main centre in Canada for the production of slate. At that time, there were no less than ten slate quarries in the area around Richmond, Melbourne, Kingsey, and Danville. Entire villages grew up around the quarries which provided a living to hundreds of workers for the most part from Great Britain.
Three components make up the explosive combination of black powder: saltpeter (potassium nitrate), sulphur, and charcoal (carbon). In its heyday, black powder had two primary applications: blasting powder for use in mining operations, and gunpowder for hunting.
Since about the 1870s, the inhabitants of this area, some twenty kilometres northeast of Richmond, were aware of the strange substance which veined the rocks on a hillside known as "Webb's Ledge." It was a Welsh miner named Evan Williams, who, visiting his parents in 1881, first identified the substance as the mineral asbestos, and recognized its commercial value.
In its infancy, hydroelectric power in the Eastern Townships was in the hands of a variety of small, local companies.