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J

ames Crocket Wilson was born in Ireland in 1841 the son of Samuel Wilson and Elizabeth Crocket. They arrived in Montreal in the spring of 1842, five years before the Irish potato famine hit. While his father had no marketable skills upon their arrival, he taught himself the rudiments of carpentry and mechanics and eventually landed employment with the Grand Trunk Railway making railway cars. He is credited with the design of the first railway snowplough.

J.C. Wilson initially followed his father in mechanics until an accident left him injured. Thanks to the kindness of a friend, he subsequently enrolled in the Model School, then the McGill Normal School. After working in an assortment of jobs in Toronto and New York, he found himself a position in paper manufacturing back in Montreal. In 1870, he set up his own company manufacturing paper bags and is credited with making the first flat-bottomed paper bag and with being the first to supply paper bags to grocery stores in Canada. In 1880, he built a large paper mill in Lachute.

In 1880, the Delisles set up the Delisle pulp mill in St. Jerome and soon moved it to Saunderson Falls in Cordon, north of St. Jerome. The Delisles' mill turned wood pulp into cardboard boxes. Whereas today we talk about the rag content of quality paper, we generally accept that paper comes from trees. When James Crocket Wilson founded J.C. Wilson Paper, this was not the case. Paper came from rags, flax and linen. Cardboard came from trees. Delisle and Wilson were in no way competitors nor was one the supplier to the other.

Charles Fenerty is credited with the invention of paper from wood fibres. Fenerty, of New Brunswick, appears to have been the first to develop the process, but not the first to patent it. Whoever is credited, J.C. Wilson determined that paper could be made from wood pulp. In 1893 he purchased the Delisle mill and soon Saunderson Falls became Wilson Falls or Les Chutes Wilson.

James Crocket Wilson died in 1899. In addition to his role as founder of J.C. Wilson Paper, he served two terms as Alderman for the St. Lawrence Ward of Montreal, was elected M. P. for Argenteuil in 1887, served as president of the Fish and Game Protection Club of Quebec, president of the Irish-Protestant Benevolent Society, vice-president and life-time governor of the Montreal Dispensary, was a governor of the Protestant Insane Asylums of Quebec and served on the board of the Protestant School Commissioners of Montreal. After his death Wilson Paper continued under the skilful guidance of his son William Walter C. Wilson, with the help of two more of his sons, Frank Howard Wilson and Edwin Howlett Wilson. It became one of the largest paper companies in Canada having mills in Lachute and St. Jerome together with a factory and warehouse at Montreal, and warehouses at Winnipeg and Vancouver. Although it became a publicly traded company, it stayed in the control of the family into the 1950's. Abitibi Paper, today Abitibi Price, eventually absorbed it.

Wilson Falls is now a park, just to the east of the Autoroute where it turns from three lanes into two.

Acknowledgements to George (Duff) Mitchell, Our Kindred Spirits, Serge Laurin, Histoire des Laurentides and with special thanks to Patty Brown, great-great grand-daughter of J.C. Wilson

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