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.
Bâti en 1875, le Potton Springs Hotel et ses célèbres sources sulfureuses attireront des milliers de visiteurs en provenance de l’est de l’Amérique du Nord. Les curistes arrivaient par train – le Missisquoi and Black Rivers Valley Railway qui deviendra ensuite l’Orford Mountain Railway et, finalement, le Canadien Pacifique.
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.