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L

aurentian development did not all take place around the big lakes like Lac des Sables and Lake Manitou. Many people came here for the wilderness pleasures available on some of the smaller lakes, surrounded by many acres of what was once farmland, but which has now grown back into extensive forest holdings. It began with the arrival of the train in 1892, and among the families that chose that route were several of the descendents of John Molson and Sarah Inslay Vaughan.

John Molson, born in Lincolnshire, England in 1763, first came to Montreal in 1782, only nineteen years after the famous battle on the Plains of Abraham. During his first years in Montreal he was involved in a brewery owned by Thomas Loid, who helped the young Molson get established. Orphaned at eight years old, Molson had been raised by his maternal grandparents. This allowed him to be educated and provided him with an inheritance, a piece of real estate in England called Snake Hall. For four years leading up to the depression known as "Les Années de la faim" in 1786, John Molson was surrounded by a small coterie of new friends struggling to eke out a living in this colonial French-speaking town. To the south, the American states had recently broken away from the Empire sending Loyalists into the colony, while across the ocean France was reeling under the stress that would lead to the storming of the Bastille. In need of capital to improve the brewery, John Molson returned to England, an eight-week voyage across the Atlantic, to mortgage Snake Hall. While there, he discovered a book called Theoretical Hints on an Improved Practise of Brewing by John Richardson. Risking all, he brought English barley seed back to Montreal and distributed it to farmers, aggressively applying the new techniques.

By the turn of the century, Molson's brewery grew more than tenfold. Molson decided to use the profits to develop areas of what was then the new technology. He was convinced that Montreal should have steam-driven boats like Fulton had built on the Hudson and within a few years of Fulton's first steamship, he launched the Accommodation on the St.Lawrence River. Undaunted by the scale of the undertaking, he engaged the Forges Saint- Maurice, an ironworks originally established under the French regime, to build him a steam engine. Unlike Fulton's ship, which had its steam engine built in England, the Accommodation was built entirely in North America.

Subsequently Molson went on to use steam technology in the development of a new distillery and in 1832 he backed the Champlain and St. Lawrence Railroad that became Canada's first public railway. It ran between Dorchester (now St-Jean-sur-Richelieu) and La Prairie, effectively joining the Hudson River and the St. Lawrence. The first locomotive, the Dorchester, pulled its load in 1836, the year Molson died. That year the Molson steamship line comprised 22 vessels.

John Molson was also president of the Bank of Montreal as well as Vice- President of the Montreal General Hospital. He was a member of the Assembly for Lower Canada and eventually became a member of its legislative council. He founded the Royal Theatre at the current location of Bonsecours Market, and backed Montreal's first luxury hotel.

History places him in the Chateau Clique, the English establishment that opposed the 1837 uprisings led by Louis-Joseph Papineau and A.N. Morin. An examination of the times paints a romantic picture of each side. Molson, the champion of industrialisation, objected to the seigneurial system and had a vision of Montreal as one of the two or three greatest industrial- commercial centres in North America. This was the reality and the expectation of the Chateau Clique; the British administration was fair and magnanimous and industrial growth would be the order of the day. Montreal was the most important colonial city in the largest empire in the world. Papineau's vision, by contrast, was of more power for the seigneuries through greater representation in the Assembly, while Morin's was to bring democracy to French Canada.

The year 1837 saw major collapses of both British and American banks. John Molson was gone and his three sons were at the helm. British and American economic stability was challenged; the North American ports were flooded with immigrants. Cholera epidemics were running rampant in Montreal and New York, and both Lower and Upper Canada were besieged by uprisings by the Parti des Patriotes here and the Reform Party in Upper Canada. In this atmosphere of martial law, trials for treason, sickness and economic instability, William Molson, the third son of John, issued a currency engraved with the Molson emblem in an attempt to stabilize the market of Lower Canada. The torch, lighted by the father during the 'years of hunger' had been passed on to the sons and they had risen to the challenge.

Molson's Bank, in effect created to deal with this crisis, introduced Canada's first currency designated as a 'dollar' and received its charter in 1855. In 1925 when it merged with the Bank of Montreal, it had 125 branches. The Champlain and St. Lawrence Railroad eventually became a part of the Grand Trunk railway and from there became a part of Canadian National Railways. Molson's Brewery, one of Canada's first companies, is the oldest brewery in North America. (What did the steamships evolve into?)

The Molson family continues to grow and flourish in Canada. There are 18 different entries with the heading Molson in the Canadian Encyclopaedia and forty descendants of John and Sarah Molson served in the First World War. It has spread its roots deeply and broadly in the Ste-Agathe area where members continue to contribute to the growth and well being of the community.

Ref:

The Railways of Canada Archives
John Molson: Strength through Diversity -J.M.S. Careless
Canadian Genealogy Index
Maud Dufort, Cam Veng Ly and Frédéric Jodoin "L'historien et les ressources documentaires dans les archives et les musées", presented at the Winter Session, 2000 at UQAM
Bibliothèque nationale du Québec
Les forges du St-Maurice, Roch Samson
McCord Museum

Joseph Graham has written a book that features a select number of stories of Laurentian places and how they got their names. To learn more, click here.

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This material may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the written permission of the author. © Joseph Graham