Local History

Il fut un temps où les Cantons-de-l'Est étaient parsemés d'écoles rurales. Sur les anciennes cartes de la région, on pouvait facilement remarquer que chaque hameau possédait son école.

On December 26th, 1871, Daniel Way appears with wife Keziah before the notary public and sells to son Lorenzo almost all the land he owns by the Niger River, including the family dwelling, for twelve hundred dollars. On the same day Daniel sells to his other son Asa the remainder of the land for eight hundred dollars. In addition, Asa and Lorenzo each get an undivided half of the the woolen mill and the machinery used for carding wool and dressing cloth.

Having paid tribute to the Hollister and Truell families, let’s go back to Way’s Mills in the 1860s. A post route from Barnston to Way’s Mills is established on July 1st, 1863. Ebenezer Southmayd Senior, the Ways’ neighbour, is Way’s Mills first postmaster.

One of the earliest settlers of Way’s Mills, Harry Hollister, owned over 100 acres in the Fifth Range on which he operated a grist mill and a saw mill. He died in 1857 (see Part 8, 10 and 11). The following year, his widow Mary Ann Yemans sold the farm and the mills to Valorous Truell for 100$ on condition that (the following is an extract from the 1858 deed of sale):

By the 1850s, residents in the Coaticook area, including Barsnton are fighting with Stanstead over the location of the Railroad running from Portland, Maine, into Canada. Daniel Way and Harry Hollister, are shareholders of the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad (2 shares each!). Coaticook is chosen and the region develops quickly as a result of the economic boom that follows. Way’s Carding Works, as Daniel’s mill is then called, is prospering.

Daniel Way lives at the entrance of the settlement, by the first bridge. Cloth manufacture is his trade. At the far end of the settlement, by the bridge at the foot of Chemin Madore, lives Harry Hollister. He has been operating a saw mill and a grist mill for several years.

1849…There are rumblings of discontent in Stanstead County. Its citizens are unhappy with a stagnating economy and the seeming reluctance of Canada’s colonial government to effect the changes that will encourage growth.

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.