Local History

The St. Francis College (1854-1898) played a prominent role on the education scene in Quebec.

--September 3, 2015.

In Morin Heights on Sunday, July 31st, Bishop Barry Clarke of the Anglican Diocese of Montreal led the celebration of Trinity Church’s 150th anniversary. He also presided at the dedication of a new sandstone wall on one street side of the cemetery. This quite lengthy and substantial wall was built by funds donated by families and friends of Trinity, who raised over $20,000 for its construction. A large walnut plaque, to be mounted inside the church, was also presented with the names of those people to whom the wall is dedicated.

When the railway first pushed northward into the Laurentians in the late nineteenth century, its initial purpose was to take out raw materials like lumber, building stone and minerals for the growing industries of Montreal.

The Sun Life building in downtown Montreal is, without a doubt, one of this city's premier architectural landmarks. Three quarters of a century after its completion, this great, layered skyscraper still impresses passers-by -- by its sheer massiveness, its solidity, and its beauty.

By the 1890s, with the coming of the railways, the Laurentians were becoming less isolated, and in the summers, middle class people from Montreal started coming for vacations away from the city. This initiated a new form of economy -- the boarding house farm.

The line of cruise boats known as "the Alouette" has been catering to summer visitors to Lac des Sables in Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts for over sixty years.

The snowmobile taxis / school buses that roamed Morin Heights village streets and roads in the 1940s and 1950s "must have been the most unusual vehicles to ever trek through the snow," as Sandra Stock described them.

Founded in Charleston (Hatley Village) in 1835, by a number of prominent Sherbrooke businessmen, including Samuel Brooks, C. F. H. Goodhue, Otis King, and others, the Stanstead and Sherbrooke Fire Insurance Company operated successfully for over a century and a half, making it one of the longest-running Eastern Townships companies.

The Young Men's Christian Association, or YMCA, was founded in London, England, in 1844, to provide assistance to young workers during the Industrial Revolution. Seven years later, in 1851, the very first branch of the "Y" was established in North America -- in Montreal.