Highlighted here are examples of families who undertook the process of immigration, the founding of businesses and the creation of industry in the area. These are their stories.

William Farmer

In the 1830's immigrants were catching wind of the opportunities for settlement in the Gatineau region; families came in large groups for support. One such group was headed by William Farmer, who came from Bridgenorth, Shropshire, in the year 1834. The entourage Farmer brought with him included his family and a housekeeper, a lawyer, a tutor, a millwright, a waiter and his family of seven, a gardener and seven family members, and a general purpose man with his nine relatives, in addition to the livestock and financial resources to support the fifty-six immigrants, that was typical of a wealthy immigrant of that time.

Despite his retreat to Upper Canada in 1846, William Farmer's endeavour resulted in the naming of Farmer's Rapids where his settlement landed on the Gatineau River.   See more...

The MacLarens

In the 1840's, David MacLaren, a successful hardware merchant originally from Glasgow, Scotland; and more immediately from the Township of Torbolton in Ontario, moved with his family to Wakefield, Quebec. His sons established a successful business comprising a lumbering firm, flour mill turned gristmill, woollen factory, brickmaking plant and a general store.

In the 1850's the MacLarens in Wakefield expanded their gristmill establishment to include a woollen mill. It is doubtful whether any of the local spinsters continued to card their own fleece after this. To be freed of this lengthy process has to be experienced to be appreciated.

MacLaren's woollen mill stood a little apart from the gristmill, on the area that is at present groomed into a park area. At about the turn of the century, additions were made to this mill, which had been operating for almost 50 years. The first floor was occupied with weaving; the second floor held the carding equipment, and the third floor, the spinning. An adjoining building housed the picking room and a dye room. A photograph of this period shows a staff of about 25 men and women, so there is little doubt that MacLaren’s mill complex was a hub of industry and the largest centre of local employment.

The water power on the Lapeche River ground the grain in the grist mill, powered the looms and spinning equipment, and produced electricity for the complex as well as the general store.

In later years, MacLaren's store was well known in the village, but in the earliest years it was only a small log building. It was inside the shop that the owners would roll up their blankets and sleep at the day's end. From these simple beginnings, the store expanded, until at its peak in the early 1900s, MacLaren's General Store was functioning as a typical, thriving country storeÑa virtual beehive.

On the morning of May 17, 1910 a spark from a metal object in the carding mill ignited the greasy wool. The fire that ensued destroyed the entire complex. Although the gristmill was later restored, this tragedy rang the death knell of the MacLaren Empire in Wakefield and the local weaving industry.

The Wrights

It was the timber that drew the first settlers to the valleys of the Ottawa and Gatineau. Lumbering sustained their economy for 100 years. First to arrive was an enterprising Yankee from Woburn Massachusetts, Philemon Wright, who came up the frozen Ottawa early in 1800 with 25 families to build his settlement at Hull.

It is important at this point to consider the personality of Alonzo Wright, grandson of Philemon Wright.

Handsome, young and politically ambitious, AlonzoWright was well renowned in the business milieu of Ottawa and Hull, and much sought after socially on both sides of the river. With the settling of his father's estate he became owner of several properties in Hull and Aylmer as well as a vast tract of land on the east side of the Gatineau River   See more...

The Gilmours

The Gilmour family played a pivotal role in the economic development of Québec in the nineteenth century. To deal with the rapidly expanding log drive down the Gatineau, the Gilmours financed a stone-filled dam, a mill, and a two-mile lumber slide on the Gatineau River at Chelsea Falls.

By 1849, 45 saws were cutting 300,000 deals in lumber per year, employing 180 men in Chelsea. The 1854 Reciprocity Treaty with the United States signalled an outburst of expansion; planks and boards were now classed as raw materials and allowed free entry. Business prospered. GilmoursÔ Chelsea mill began producing good strips, good siding, stocks, pickets, covers, lath, and shingles.

By 1849, 45 saws were cutting 300,000 deals in lumber per year, employing 180 men in Chelsea. The 1854 Reciprocity Treaty with the United States signalled an outburst of expansion; planks and boards were now classed as raw materials and allowed free entry. Business prospered. GilmoursÔ Chelsea mill began producing good strips, good siding, stocks, pickets, covers, lath, and shingles.

John Gilmour was the first Canadian-born president of Gilmour & Company, and oversaw all the Canadian operations, including new sawmills in Trenton and on the Nation and Blanche Rivers. He was one of the lumber trade pioneers of the Gatineau, who lived many years in a dwelling overlooking the Gatineau River, at Chelsea.

John and Jesse Gilmour often returned from a ball or dinner in Ottawa six miles to Chelsea, well wrapped in furs in their sleigh, with a coachman on the box, behind two splendid horses. In Chelsea, they raised eight children. Three sons (David, Sutherland, and Hamilton) formed the nucleus of the famous "Silver Seven" hockey team which in 1908 brought the Stanley Cup to Ottawa for the first time, and, years later, was voted Canada's outstanding hockey team during the first half of this century.

On the morning of May 17, 1910 a spark from a metal object in the carding mill ignited the greasy wool. The fire that ensued destroyed the entire complex. Although the gristmill was later restored, this tragedy rang the death knell of the MacLaren Empire in Wakefield and the local weaving industry.   See more...

Thomas Kirk

Thomas Kirk from Londonderry, Ireland, came to the Gatineau in 1829, and got land on both sides of the river and at a place where the stream is flat and placid for some distance, a thing not very common on that rapid river, there established what was long known as Kirk's Ferry

Kirk was apparently quite a businessman, for apart from running the ferry he established a tavern or hotel near his ferry and it became a stopping place for horse-drawn traffic on the river road, which by then must have been somewhat improved. Kirk’s Tavern was much used by shantymen and was a stopping place for the stage-coach. In addition to running the ferry and hotel he sold machinery, and it was said that those who bought equipment from him had better make sure that they obtained receipts for money paid over to him.   See more...

The Brooks

Caleb Brooks V was the pioneer who settled at Low. He opened an inn for the lumbermen pushing up the ValleyÑthe only temperance inn upon the Gatineau. He and his seven sons kept a store, a smithy, a livery stable, and a sawmill. They also farmed 1,000 acres and started a stagecoach line from Wakefield to Maniwaki.

Marshall, Caleb's oldest son, carried the mail on horseback to Maniwaki 70 miles north until a road was built and then he drove the stage. The stage driver was a glamorous figure in that frontier world. He made the speed records and was the first to learn the news along a hundred miles of road. Little wonder that pretty Hannah Chamberlain of Chelsea, just home after education in Boston, took an interest in Marshall

Marshall and Hannah Brooks were married in 1859 and as a wedding gift Caleb built them a house and a barn as he did for each of his sons when they married. This white farmhouse still stands on its hill overlooking Low and is named Brooks Hill.

Across the road in the graveyard, a tall memorial column marks the grave where Caleb "of Boston" and Anne Maria Brooks lie surrounded by many of their children and grandchildren. Hannah Brooks was 102 before she was laid to rest beside Marshall. Their descendants have spread across Canada as far as the Pacific Coast. But the railway put the stagecoach out of business; cars replaced horses; the inn burned down. Sad days also came to the farmhouse on the hill. By 1966 the building, the oldest in the village, was showing its age.