Local History

(Continued from Part 1)

In the lovely windswept high places of early 19th century Dunham, among old-growth forests and newly ploughed fields, where the earliest beginnings of tender apple shoots were beginning to take root, a sinister and corrupt enterprise thrived and threatened to destroy the placidity of the newly settled pastoral community.

In the 1860s, many Irishmen living in the United States wanted Britain to grant independence to Ireland. Ireland was under English rule and most of its people lived in severe poverty. The Irish potato famine of the 1840s had decimated Ireland's population and England had offered little help.

No account of the Eastern Townships would be complete without mentioning Rogers' Rangers and what has become one of the more infamous episodes in Townships lore. After the fall of Quebec in 1759, but before the war was completely over, British General Jeffery Amherst decided to punish the St.

THE REBELLIONS OF 1837-1838

(**Continued from The Rebellions Part 1: The Political Context)

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.