There are a few in every community. Many people think that they are a little crazy to stick their necks out. Much of the success of our communities can be traced back to a few people who were not afraid to take a chance.
Most of the townships, towns, counties or even countries were started by direction and investment from another country. The town or township we live in today was the result of someone being directed to encourage people to move to and populate an area. The little township that I live in (Clarendon, in Pontiac County, Quebec), was established when a British army officer, James Prendergast was commissioned in 1827 to survey and encourage pioneer settlers to come to the new township of Clarendon.
For several years, plots of land, usually 100 acres were given to a new settler if in the next . . .
few years some land was cleared, a home was built, and a crop was grown. Once this work was completed on the lot the owner might apply for another lot.
Prendergast also built the first sawmill, gristmill and later a lime kiln to produce lime for mortar used in construction of stone and brickwork. A post office and the first school were soon added.
Prendergast was raised in Ireland which seemed to always be in a conflict between Catholics and Protestants. There was also some conflict in Quebec between French and English so Prendergast only settled English Protestants in Clarendon while encouraging Catholics and French speakers to choose excellent land in other parts of the county. Through the years that followed, French, English, Catholic and Protestants played together, worked together and many fell in love and married each other, raised families and this eliminated the strife that still exists in other parts of our world today.
Where I live in Clarendon centre, in the little town in the middle of Clarendon became incorporated as the Village of Shawville in 1873 and was named after the Shaw family who donated the land where the fairgrounds are today. As the community expanded it outgrew the little grist mill near the river on Prendergast’s farm that provided animal feed and flour for families close by.
In 1850, Captain Walter Radford was encouraged to construct a new, bigger roller mill on Wilson’s Creek between Shawville and Bryson. This Clarendon roller mill was operated by the Wilson family and the Wilsons were also involved in construction of the dam on Wilson’s Creek which provided head water which was conveyed about a quarter of a mile down to the water turbine in the basement of the mill through two foot wide pipes constructed of wooden staves which were bound by strong steel bands. Wilson’s water powered mill ran from 1888 until the mid 1940s, grinding animal feed and making wonderful flour from wheat that farmers would bring from miles around to have processed.
The Wilson family also dammed another creek about a mile east of Campbell’s Bay and built the first hydro-electric power plant in Pontiac County. This little power station provided Campbell’s Bay with the first electric lights in the Pontiac. Electric power in the Pontiac was later supplied by larger hydro plants at Bryson and Waltham and the little Wilson power plant on a creek was abandoned and is now mostly gone.
As our Pontiac County quickly became more populated, numerous sawmills of various sizes were constructed all over the county to not only supply wood for local construction, but exported to other Canadian and U.S. buyers. Our county has also watched canneries, woolen mills, cheese factories and butter plants and even Elliott’s Pump Factory be constructed, flourish, provide jobs, and disappear as time passed.
Encourage your parents and grandparents to tell you the stories about the innovations that they have witnessed in their time before some of our unwritten history is lost forever.
My grandfather who built the first milking parlour for dairy cows in the province of Quebec, once told me, “Don’t be afraid of a little debt, it keeps you sharp.” This is how our country was built.
