History Articles

Archibald McMillan, who was born in Scotland in 1762, is credited with being the first settler in Grenville.

In 1802, he and his cousin Alan McMillan brought 344 adults and 104 children as Highland emigrants to Montreal, on board the vessels Friends, Helen and Jane. His plan was to set up a Highland style fiefdom in Argenteuil County, with himself as a New-World laird. When land negotiations bogged down, many of his followers settled in Glengarry and Stormont counties in Upper Canada, where relatives and friends were already established.

Looking northward from Grenville, about three miles, one sees the Laurentians rising sharply a few hundred feet, presenting a formidable barrier. To the northeast, a stream called the Kingham River cuts through, draining a small valley which reaches back into the hills at the eastern edge of Grenville Township.

The publication, Cemetery Heritage in Quebec: A Handbook, has just been released. The book, published by QAHN and written by Matthew Farfan, project leader of QAHN's Cemetery Heritage Inventory and Restoration Initiative (CHIRI), is available in softcover format.

During World War Two, the fabric of No. 2 Company of the Canadian Forestry Corps drew heavily on the English-speaking sons of Argenteuil, leveraging their skills with the axe and the crosscut saw, honed on the family bush farms of their native county. No. 16 Company was formed around their French-speaking “bucheron” counterparts.

A major concern for the entire historical community of Quebec has been, and remains, our vast and varied religious heritage. Regardless of language or denomination, our cities, towns and countryside are populated by empty, or seasonal, or much diminished churches, many of which have old cemeteries attached to them.

The Township of Abercrombie, comprising Shawbridge, a part of Piedmont, the village of Ste. Adele, and Fourteen Island Lake, was named for General James Abercromby. Exactly why he should have been so honoured is a bit of a mystery. It could be someone’s sense of humour — an encrypted message to the future inviting us to look back and see that the victors in war are not always winners.

Nominingue is above all a lake! On the native peoples’ route to their hunting and fishing territories. Algonquins, Iroquois and others travelled the tributaries of the Ottawa: the Nord, the Rouge, the Petite-Nation, the Lièvre et the Gatineau. It was their custom to name locations they visited on their travels. Does "Nominingue" have its origins in the Iroquois or the Algonquin languages? Who could tell? According to Mr. B.A. de Montigny, Nominingue means in Iroquois: "red paint".

One of the most obvious landmarks in the Morin Heights and St. Adolphe d'Howard area was the large dome on top of Lac St. Denis Mountain. This enormous puffball mushroom lingered on long after the base, Canadian Forces Station Lac St. Denis, closed in 1986. There are also the remains of a village on the shore of Lac St.Denis that originally housed the base personnel.

The River:
The history of Lanaudière is first and foremost a story of the great settlement movement along the St. Lawrence River, the only major highway for the original Indian inhabitants and, later on, for the new arrivals from France.

The Amerindian heritage has been traced back as far as the 14th century through archeological sites in Quebec. Today, in the far north of the region, the village of Manawan remains an aboriginal reserve where a community of Attikamek lives.

Naming the Laurentians: A History of Place Names "Up North," isthe title of a new book written by Joseph Graham,and published by Les Éditions Main Street Inc. An anthology of stories about Laurentian places and how they got their names, it covers centuries and involves peoples and nations from far and wide.