Although it takes only about 90 minutues to travel from Montreal to The Eastern Townships, it wasn't so easy almost 200 years ago.One transportation service inaugurated in 1824 offered a stage coach ride from Standstead (On The Vermont Border) to Montreal for about $6- but it took more than a day to arrive. It would leave at 6 A.M Friday and would arrive on Saturday.
It seemed to take me as long, or longer, from the time I left my house and made stops to visit my customers in the small towns.
The Eastern Townships is situated at the meeting point between two different cultures, two different countries: the United States and Canada. The sharing of a common border has molded the history of this region and is responsible for its particular cachet. The area was initially colonized by the Loyalists to whom parcels of land were given in return for their loyalty to the British Crown. However, French Canadians, employed mainly by the lumber and railway industries, began to buy properties in this region and by the beginning of the nineteenth century, the area had become primarily French-speaking. The Eastern Townships were baptized "cantons", a term of Swiss origin, in 1858, following the publication of a short work by Québécois writer A Gérin Lajoie.
MORE HISTORY Of The Townships
5/20/01 7:34:55 AM
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