Clarendon Township, Pontiac County, Quebec, Canada East

Notes:
Clarendon is a municipality in the Outaouais region, part of the Pontiac Regional County Municipality, Quebec, Canada. It is located on the north shore of the Ottawa River across from Horton Township in Ontario.



Its settlements include Clarendon, North Clarendon, Charteris, Lawn, Murrell, Radford, Sand Bay, Starks Corners, and Yarm. The town of Shawville is surrounded by, but not part of, Clarendon.[4]



Largely cleared of forests, Clarendon is a predominantly agricultural municipality, with an elevation of 167 meters (548 ft) above sea level. The only notable lake is Green Lake, which is surrounded by cottages.



The township was first surveyed in 1792 and appears on the Gale and Duberger map of 1795.[4] Settlement did not occur until 1825 when James Prendergast, a retired British Army Officer, was commissioned by the government to lead this task. From that year until 1827, free land was granted, resulting in a wave of settlers, starting with 15 settlers near the township's centre (now Shawville). But Prendergast, originally from religiously-divided Ireland, stipulated that settlers only be Protestants in order to avoid similar religious strife. As a result, Clarendon (and Shawville) is known as the heartland of Anglo-Saxon Protestantism in western Quebec.[5]



Between 1827 and 1835, Prendergast was responsible for establishing the first four schools and bringing in its teachers. He also built a water-driven sawmill and grist mill at his home along the Ottawa River.[5]



In 1833, the Township of Clarendon was officially established. It was named after Clarendon Park, near Salisbury in Wiltshire, England (where Henry II had convened peers and bishops to formulate the Constitutions of Clarendon in 1164). In 1837, the post office opened.[6] From then on and into the 1840s, when the timber industry started to prosper, a second wave of settlement occurred, doubling the population of Clarendon between 1840 and 1850.[5]



In 1855, the Township Municipality of Clarendon was created. This style was reformed to Municipality of Clarendon on October 11, 2003.



http://outaouais.quebecheritageweb.com/article/clarendon

CLARENDON

Local History

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AUTHOR: Courtesy of the MRC of Pontiac

In 1792, the Municipality of Clarendon was planned and named after a place in Wiltshire, England. After several attempts to have the township surveyed and settled, the government commissioned a retired Bristish Army Officer, Ensign James Prendergast, to undertake this work.



The first 15 settlers were granted land in 1826, mostly near the centre of the township, which is now the village of Shawville. Prendergast brought in school teachers and established the first four schools between 1827 and 1835. He also built a water-driven sawmill and grist mill at his home at the front of the municipality near the Ottawa River.



It is no coincidence that the Shawville-Clarendon area is the heartland of Anglo-Saxon Protestantism in Western Quebec. "When Prendergast emigrated from Ireland in 1825, he brought his dreams of being surrounded by as settlement without the religious tension of his homeland", Joan Finnigan writes in her Guide to the Ottawa Valley. "When he became Crown Land Agent, he made one condition: only Protestants would be allowed to settle in his territory".



The bulk of Clarendon settlement came in two large waves; the first from 1825 to 1827. This rush stopped when free land grants were discontinued and settlement did not pick up again until the late 1830's and the 1840's when the timber industry started to prosper. The population of Clarendon doubled between 1840 and 1850.



The Municipality of Clarendon was established in 1841 and Thomas Corrigan was one of the first mayors. Clarendon remains an English speaking community in a province, which is largely French.



HAMLETS OF CLARENDON

Local History

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AUTHOR: Matthew Farfan

The following is based on information contained in Jo-Anne Brownlee?s excellent booklet, A Self-Guided Historical Tour of Clarendon, published by the Municipality of Clarendon in 2005, and Noms et lieux du Qu?bec : dictionnaire illustr?, published by the Commision de toponymie du Qu?bec.



Austin: Located at the corner of Sand Bay and Front roads, the hamlet of Austin was formerly known as Cotie?s, after pioneer Andrew Cotie, who donated land for a school in the vicinity. The community changed its name to Austin in the 1880s when the Methodist Church was built. The Austin United (formerly Methodist) Church, which no longer holds regular services, and the adjacent Cemetery, are quite picturesque.



Stark?s Corners: This community was once known as Murphy?s Corners, but was renamed Stark?s Corners after the Stark family took up residence in the vicinity. The Starks donated land for a schoolhouse, cemetery, and Presbyterian Church. Stark?s Corners once boasted a number of amenities, including a general store, a cheese factory and a post office.



Parkman: This tiny hamlet at one time had its own post office. Today little remains of the settlement.



Radford: Formerly known as Brownlee?s Corners, Radford was re-christened after Capt. Walter Radford, a retired army engineer who, in recognition of his many years of service, received a government grant of 283 hectares in this area. Radford, who served as Crown Land Agent and justice of the peace, settled here in 1831. He built a grist mill in 1851.



Moorhead: Formerly called Clark?s Settlement, Moorhead was named for Janis Moorhead, the wife of William S. Clark, who founded the Pontiac Agricultural Society and helped to finance the first Shawville Fair.



Charteris: Archibald Angus was the first postmaster and storekeeper in this area. A post office operated in Charteris up until 1970.



Yarm: Originally known as Hodgins Corners, the name Yarm was chosen by the first postmaster, Robert McJanet, a native of Yarmouth, England. McJanet wanted to name the village after his hometown, but was told that there was already a Yarmouth in Nova Scotia. His solution: to shorten the name of the village to Yarm. The Yarm post office operated for nearly a hundred years, closing in 1967.



http://outaouais.quebecheritageweb.com/search/node/Shawville

SHAWVILLE: HISTORIC HUB OF THE PONTIAC

Local History

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AUTHOR: Courtesy of the MRC of Pontiac

The earliest settlers in the Shawville area were Irish Protestants from County Tipperary who came to Canada after the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815. Many had first settled in the Carp Valley on the Upper Canada side of the Ottawa River. Local lore tells us that Thomas Hodgins, John Dale and his wife Elizabeth set out from this colony in the summer of 1821 to search for new land to settle. It is believed they paddled up the river, landing in a small bay some forty miles upriver. The two men then set off northward in search of a suitable place to homestead. They fought thick bush, insects and swamp, until on the second day they reached a clearing where a beautiful spring bubbled out of the ground. They decided that this was where they would begin their new farms.



Before the decade was out, many other families from Carleton joined them in the new township of Clarendon. Before long, businesses were set up to serve the farming community that was sprouting up around the original settlement. This area became known as "Clarendon Centre". By the 1840's the Centre had become a small but thriving village.



On January 12, 1873 Shawville was proclaimed as a separate municipality, to be named after one of its most influential and prosperous families, the Shaws.

The town's first mayor, John Dale, Jr, had seen in his lifetime the evolution of the town from a mere collection of farmers' homesteads to status as a full-fledged municipality.

Latitude: 000000, Longitude: -76.516667

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