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T

héophile Thibodeau became curé of the parish of Ste. Agathe in 1878 and simultaneously homesteaded a large peninsula at the far end of Lac des Sables. He was the community’s spiritual leader during Ste. Agathe’s most difficult years. He inherited a parish that was just discovering that the fields would not yield, and the local farmers were either leaving or looking for other ways to make a living. Several of these hard-working pioneers built hotels. While the clientele consisted to some degree of vacationers from the city, there were also the migrants flowing north to the promised land of Curé Labelle. These mixed populations and mixed demands created mixed values and the most contentious issue that Curé Thibodeau had to deal with was the temperance movement. On the one hand, there were those who wished to forbid the sale of alcohol and on the other, there was the growing commerce available to those who could furnish the needs and desires of the new market.

The Curé was clearly happy to retreat to his home on that huge peninsula that later became known as Rolland’s Point, and subsequently, Greenshields’ Point. In 1882 he tried to retire there but he was soon forced back into service. He mustered the energies of the parish to build a new presbytery and he was curé in residence when the smallpox plague swept across the province in 1885. The plague took 50 lives in Ste. Agathe, a huge tragedy for the small town. The same plague claimed thousands in Montreal. While the vaccination against smallpox had been available for some years, a failure of communication resulted in the rural and poor urban French populations’ paranoid belief that the vaccination was in fact the cause of the plague. The situation became so serious that Quebec was quarantined from the rest of the continent.

Following the plague came a drought that caused three consecutive years of crop failures, and, in 1888, the poor Curé died trying to rescue the presbytery from a fire that destroyed it. For many years, and even to this day, people claim to hear him singing or talking in the woods of the peninsula he loved so much.

True to the adage that it is always darkest just before dawn, the news of the imminent arrival of the Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa and Occidental railway at each community filled the Laurentian hills with hope over the following years. If nothing else, it provided work in the construction. It reached Shawbridge by 1890, Ste. Adele by 1891 and Ste. Agathe by 1892. It was a life-line thrown out to a pioneer hamlet providing sustenance and identity. Ste. Agathe was suddenly a destinantion. Between 1887 and 1896 the total evaluation tripled for the area described as Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, and by 1911 it had risen 20-fold, and this, despite the great fire of 1907. Not only was the railway not a boondoggle, it rapidly turned Ste Agathe into a boom town with all of the problems and advantages that implies. The colonist families suddenly found opportunity and growth, but the majority of the new-comers were neither Catholic nor French. This was not exactly what the good Curé Labelle had envisioned when he campaigned for a railway and talked about a northern route of colonisation that would go all the way to Manitoba. People were coming to Ste. Agathe simply because the lakes were clean and the air was fresh and invigorating. They weren’t on their way anywhere else.

While there were many families who had come to create a holiday-homestead, some as early as the late 1860’s, Octavien Rolland is credited in the Album historique as being the first villégiateur. He was the son of Jean-Baptiste Rolland, the founder of Papier Rolland, and he bought the estate of the late Curé Thibodeau. Early maps show it to be a farm and from other sources we learn that it was generously endowed with mature white pines.

The newcomers discovered a vigorous, spirited population that can be best described by referring to Elizabeth Wand’s memoirs once again: “I found Ste. Agathe a village nestled at the lower end of the lake. The houses mostly built of logs, with plaster between, and white-washed. Little gardens with vegetables and flowers, all so neat and trim-looking. The people clad in home-spun of their own weaving, knitted stockings, good thick ones, also the work of the women and girls. The catalogue carpets and braided rugs, such a happy looking industrious people, hospitable and kindly to a degree.”