Local History

Richard Baldwin Jr. (1808-1877), who is considered the founder of Coaticook, settled on what is now Child Street in Coaticook in the early 1800s.

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.

Created in 1954 from the Catholic Séminaire St-Charles Borromée, the French-language Université de Sherbrooke was at first a three-faculty university granting degrees in law, arts, and science.

The first Catholic school for girls to be established in the Eastern Townships was Mont Notre-Dame in Sherbrooke.

Unlike their English Protestant counterparts, in the late nineteenth century, French Catholic schools in the Eastern Townships became increasingly dominated by religious orders.

By the early 1900s, schools run by Catholic nuns and brothers were established in most towns of any significant size all across the Townships.

Bishop's University in Lennoxville was founded in 1845 under the sponsorship of the Anglican Bishop of Quebec, George Jehoshaphat Mountain. Chartered to grant degrees in 1853, the school in its early years it was primarily a centre for classical education and the training of the Anglican clergy.

Early Steps in Cowansville's Development

Located at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains, the township of Dudswell was first inhabited around 1800, in the area of Bishopton. About 1824, the area surrounding Marbleton, nestled around a small lake in a luscious green valley, expanded with the mining of calcium deposits, which drew an influx of Francophones.