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T

he first half of the nineteenth century was a formative period for our country. By the 1820's Montreal was receiving rural emigrants along with increasing numbers of immigrants from war-torn Europe. Napoleon had been defeated and all the European structures were being challenged by the new industrial era. There were no proper accommodations for these people and in the early 1830's an epidemic of cholera broke out. During the course of the epidemic 6,000 people died. Radicals blamed the British for the epidemic and xenophobia took hold among the French. Of course Montreal was not the only North American port receiving immigrants or trying to contain the cholera epidemic.

During all of this, a power struggle between the Lower Canada Assembly and the Council pitted the seigneurs against business interests. The Assembly was working to rule, led by Louis Joseph Papineau, Seigneur of La Petite Nation. In the meantime, the American government under President Jackson refused to guarantee major loans made to American concerns by British banks and the whole banking system began to unravel, causing a collapse of confidence in banks in the colonies. In Montreal, 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. At the same time, the ninety-two resolutions of the Parti des Patriotes was being proffered in an attempt to gain democratic rights from the Crown, and the Patriotes in Lower Canada and the Reform party under William Lyon Mackenzie in Upper Canada were staging uprisings.

The troops were called in, and by the time the dust had settled, over 350 people had lost their lives. Papineau fled to the United States, accompanied, according to some accounts, by a large, boisterous lumberman, who became the Paul Bunyon of American mythology.

A lawyer named Augustin Norbert Morin, the author of the 92 resolutions, was an unsung hero of this epoch. He arrived with Papineau at St. Charles in the middle of the battle to try to talk the farmers out of taking up arms. He was arrested in the confusion, but it was the failure of the uprisings and the departure of Papineau that allowed Morin to come into his own. He was an intellectual with strong feelings about public education, justice and freedom, and he was the founder of the most influential French publication of his times, La Minerve. He was one of the founders of Laval University, its first Dean of Law, a minister in the united Canadian government of Lafontaine-Baldwin from 1851 to 1854, and eventually co-prime- minister in the government of the united Canadas of Hincks-Morin and McNab- Morin. In 1855, he was made a judge, and it was in that capacity that he presided over the abolishment of the seigneurial system. He was also one of the co-authors of the Code Civil du Bas-Canada, the great achievement of George-Etienne Cartier, a document that contributed to the creation of the Canada of 1867.

During this same period, probably in an attempt to develop new agricultural regions for the displaced habitant farmers, he set up an experimental potato farm in Ste. Adele. The parishioners, newly arrived thanks to his efforts, eventually wanted to name the town for him. They suggested Morinville, but he demurred. They responded by naming it for his wife, Adèle Raymond. His own name lives on in the township of Morin, Val Morin, Morin Heights, the St. Norbert Parish in Val Morin and Lac Morin, or Manitou, as it is known today. His wife was honoured again in the naming of Lac Raymond in Val Morin.

Morin died in 1865 in Ste. Adèle. He was in his 62nd year. He is remembered as one of the great intellectuals of Lower Canada and a major contributor to the Canada that we know, and his name is repeated many times every day in the Laurentian place-names that we use.

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