Local History

The waters of the Niger had attracted settlers to the area as early as 1796, long before Daniel and Lorenzo Way’s arrival. By the late 1830s, several families were established.

In September 1843, Daniel Way and the members of his family have moved into the Barnston area in a settlement that does not yet bear their name. The eldest son, Lorenzo Sweedenburg Way, is now a young man of 27 who has married Julia Ann Hodge on September 6, 1838.

1819 : Daniel and Keziah Way and their first-born Lorenzo are now settled on Lot 9, Seventh Range of Stanstead Township, between Griffin Road and Smith’s Hollow, by the Tomifobia River.

So who was waiting for Daniel Way and his young family in Canada after 1816? Remember the Gustin, the Mack and the Miller men from Marlow N.H., who were married to Esther, Ethelinda and Sally Way, Daniel’s aunts? In The History of Stanstead County, B. F.

Keziah Jaquith, Daniel Way’s future wife, was born on November 16, 1793. She was the second daughter of Jesse Jaquith and Keziah Hathorn. Jesse Jaquith’s ancestry can easily be traced back all the way to Richard Jaques, a French protestant, or ‘Huguenot’. Richard’s son, Abraham, born around 1610, settled in the Massachussets Bay Colony.

We’ll catch up with the Gustins, Macks and Millers near the U.S.-Canada border later. For now, their nephew Daniel Way, born in 1794, is growing up in Marlow, Cheshire County, NH. The town has voted six months’ schooling for all children in 1792 and since then several district schools have been built.

The Way family thus came in 1787 to the area of Marlow, Cheshire County, New Hampshire, joining some 200 souls just recently settled there. Have a look on a map…Marlow lies some 260 km North of Lyme, Connecticut…and 270 km South-East of Stanstead…Halfway… The area is beautiful.

We know that Way’s Mills was founded in the mid-19th century by Daniel Way, who is buried in Way’s Mills cemetery, up on Jordan Rd. His son, L.S. Way, followed in the footsteps of his father and operated for over half a century the woolen mill that once stood by the Niger River at the entrance of Way’s Mills.

Pioneer schoolhouses were built to accommodate about thirty students from grades one through seven. Most schools were made of wood, with a simple cast-iron wood stove for heating in winter. Outhouses were set apart from the school building or located at the far end of an attached woodshed.

Classé site historique par le gouvernement du Canada, des États-Unis et du Québec, la Bibliothèque et Salle d'opéra Haskell fut conçue par les architectes James T. Ball et Gilbert H. Smith et construite par l'entrepreneur Nathan Beach entre 1901 et 1904.