Up the Gatineau! Article
This article was first published in Up the Gatineau! Volume 9.
Land Use History of the Gatineau Valley 1800-1850
Helen E. Parson
The settlement framework within which Quebec land use and population patterns evolved was unusual. During the French regime large blocks of land in the St. Lawrence Lowlands were granted to seigneurs. The seigneurs in turn divided their grants into strip farms, usually of eighty square arpents (1 square arpent = 5/6 acre) with a width to length ratio of one to ten. The seigneurs were then responsible for finding suitable settlers (censitaires) for the strip farms (rôtures). The arrangement was feudal in nature with both seigneurs and censitaires having defined duties to perform. The seigneurial system was part of the French legal framework that was established in eastern Canada. The seigneurial system Was, however, applied differently in the Canadian environment than it had been in Medieval Europe. An example of the adaptation to Canadian circumstances is seen in the case of land inheritance. According to seigneurial tenure, land was to be divided equally among the heirs. Land was abundant, however, and such divisions were usually of very short duration. Heirs would come to mutually acceptable agreements and one individual would then buy out the others who moved elsewhere. Thus throughout seigneurial areas land units tended to remain intact in spite of the legal system.
In 1760 Britain assumed control of New France. The Quebec Act of 1774 established the form of government and legal system for the new colony. Seigneurial land tenure and French civil law were combined with English criminal law as a compromise solution. The seigneurial system could not expand beyond its existing area, however. In 1854 the seigneurial method of land holding was abolished and lands were transferred to private ownership.
After the British takeover of New France, new lands that were opened to settlement in areas peripherial to the St. Lawrence Lowlands were surveyed into rectangular townships, divided into 200 acre lots and granted freehold by the Crown. A township fronting on a river measured nine miles in width, twelve miles in depth, and contained twelve ranges of twenty-eight lots each. Inland townships were ten miles square and contained eleven ranges, each with twenty-eight lots.
The government originally intended to grant township land only to individuals. The necessity of settling thousands of United Empire Loyalists between 1790 and 1809 resulted in the relaxation of this policy and the awarding of land to groups of associates. Under this arrangement the leader of the group of associates applied for a large block of land in the name of himself and the other members of the group. Before the title was granted the leader was responsible for surveying the land into lots. Once the title was granted, the common practice of the time was for the associates to reconvey most of their lands to the leader as an indemnification for expenses incurred in the surveying and for patent fees on the grant. ln this way it was possible for the leader of such a group to become an important landowner.
The first settler in the Gatineau area was Philemon Wright. With a group of friends and their families, Wright arrived in Hull Township in 1800. Wright, as leader of the group, applied for title to one-quarter of Hull Township, receiving it in 1806. Subsequently Wright and his family established themselves as the community and business leaders in the new settlement.
Wright and his group originally intended to farm. Like early settlers in many parts of North America they believed that once the trees were removed, the land would prove to be excellent for farming. ln spite of encouraging yields from the crops planted on freshly cleared soil, the unsuitability of the area soon became apparent. In February, 1802, before he had received title to the land, Wright sent a petition to the Lieutenant Governor of Lower Canada requesting one-quarter of the township east of Hull in addition to his quarter of Hull Township. If this was not possible Wright asked that he be allowed to take his quarter of Hull as a strip along the Ottawa River. A few months earlier Wright had subdivided the township into lots. He had found that starting in the third range back from the Ottawa River the "country is very mountainous, rocky and broken and, in general, unfit for the purposes of agriculture."
Thus, within a very short time of his arrival, Wright had come to perceptive conclusions about the nature of the land for agriculture that later settlers and the Quebec government failed to appreciate. It took more than a century before Wright's early conclusions about the nature of the land were generally accepted. Wright continued to farm, but his main economic interest turned rapidly to the abundant timber resources of the area.
Agriculture
While timber was the main source of livelihood for Hull and the Gatineau Valley throughout the first half of the nineteenth century limited agriculture was also present. Most of the early settlers of Hull, with the exception of the Wrights, became subsistence farmers. Recognition of the need to improve the agricultural practices of the colony resulted in the establishment, in 1821, of the Ottawa Agricultural and Domestic Manufactory Society with Philemon Wright as its president. The stated purpose of the Society was "the improvement in the practical part of farming and domestic manufactory; the encouragement of the best breeds of livestock; to convey necessary information to settlers." In spite of a series of cash awards established to encourage good farming practices, the Society was short-lived and had little effect on the colony.
The agricultural holdings and operations of the Wrights, on the other hand, were very different in magnitude from those of the other early settlers. By 1822 Wright and his sons had cleared 4,703 acres and operated among themselves five farms in the settled part of the colony. Wheat was a major product of their farms although other crops were grown. The most unusual of these was hemp which was required by the British navy to make rope. For each ton of hemp up to a maximum of 100 tons that was produced in ten years, Wright was promised 200 acres of Crown land. For several years the crop was successfully grown but the inducements were eventually withdrawn and so when the hemp mill burned down it was not rebuilt.
The principal crop produced throughout the early years of settlement in the lower Gatineau Valley was wheat. In 1842, in the first Census of Lower Canada, wheat, oats, and potatoes were recorded as the major crops produced in the three settled Gatineau townships of Hull, Eardley, and Wakefield.
CROPS PRODUCED lN HULL, EARDLEY, AND WAKEFIELD TOWNSHIPS, 1842
| Crop (Bushels) | Township | Total | ||
| Hull | Eardley | Wakefield | ||
| Wheat | 9,811 | 975 | 866 | 11,652 |
| Oats | 5,440 | 3,529 | 4,802 | 13,771 |
| Potatoes | 32,110 | 8,496 | 6,935 | 47,541 |
| Peas | 2,793 | 410 | 132 | 3,335 |
| Barley | 221 | 14 | 5 | 240 |
| Rye | 317 | 58 | 0 | 375 |
| Corn | 994 | 144 | 0 | 1,138 |
| Buck Wheat | 121 | 56 | 0 | 177 |
| Land Cleared (in acres) | 7,748 | 1,055 | 737 | 9,540 |
SOURCE: Canada, Lower Canada, Census of Lower Canada, 1842.
Agricultural operations were introduced into the middle and upper Gatineau Valley by the lumber industry. After the granting of the Gatineau Privilege in 1832, depots were established throughout the valley by the partners to the Privilege. The depots were to serve as initial assembly points for crews heading into the forest and as distribution centres for supplies. Farms to produce feed and to provide summer homes for the draught animals used in the lumber camps were usually operated in connection with the depots. An 1843 sketch map of the Gatineau Valley, north of the Hull-Wakefield township boundary, shows the sites of various timber limits and the location of the farms associated with them. The establishment of such farms reflected the transportation difficulties of the time. The early development of agriculture and lumbering was, therefore, closely integrated. Lumbermen, spared the need to bring in expensive supplies from a distance, provided a ready market for all locally grown produce.
Population and Settlement Patterns
During the first half of the nineteenth century, settlement expanded northward into the Gatineau Valley and underwent considerable change in ethnic composition. The first settlers of Hull Township had been Americans and the community they established was reminiscent of New England. By 1841, however, there were 210 landowners in Hull Township. Of these 115 (54.8 percent) were Irish; 32 (15.2 percent) American; 24 (11.4 percent) English; 21 (10.0 percent) English Canadian; 12 (5.7 percent) Scottish; and 6 (2.9 percent) were French Canadian.
Immigration into Upper and Lower Canada during the early nineteenth century was directly influenced by the timber trade. Operators of the timber ships, anxious for a cargo for the return trip, provided cheap transportation in desperate conditions for thousands of Irish and Scottish emigrants. Emigration from Great Britain to British North America began around 1820 and reached a yearly total of several thousand by 1825. This number increased to over 50,000 in 1832. After 1832 a slight recession occurred before immigration again rose, reaching an annual record high of more than 100,000 in 1847. The first large contingent of Irish and Scottish settlers to reach the lower Gatineau Valley settled in Eardley Township in 1819. Irish continued to arrive in this area on a sustained basis until about 1850. The lrish became the early laborers in the Gatineau lumber camps and the pioneers of settlement in the Gatineau Valley. After 1825 lrish immigrants began settling in Wakefield Township. In following the lumber business they later moved northward into Low and Aylwin Townships. In 1851, four-fifths of the inhabitants of these latter two townships were Irish.
During the first half of the nineteenth century French Canadians, attracted by the lumber business, began to move into the Shield margins. "Wherever forest operations were being conducted there French Canadians were immigrating; it was through ‘following the lumber,’ as the phrase went, that a French population was introduced into the Ottawa Valley." Thus, by 1850, the lrish were well established in the southern part of the Gatineau Valley and French Canadians had begun to move into the area.
Throughout the first fifty years of the nineteenth century lumbering dominated the Gatineau Valley as it did most of eastern Canada. The combination of favorable trade arrangements, together with extensive pine forests made the exploitation a highly lucrative commercial venture. Most developments that took place in the Gatineau Valley at this time were directly or indirectly influenced by the all-pervasive timber industry. The very existence of the industry attracted would-be workers to the area. The ships which carried lumber to Britain returned with a ballast of families in search of a new life. Farming activities became integrated with the forest because the shanties represented a captive market for all produce coaxed from the marginal soils of the valley.
Settlement and Agriculture
During the first half of the nineteenth century Irish settlers had become firmly established in the southern part of the Gatineau Valley. By contrast, throughout the second half of the century new arrivals were largely French Canadian. French Canadian laborers and river drivers had followed lumbering into the Shield and, as unoccupied land in the St. Lawrence Lowlands became increasingly scarce, French Canadians began moving onto the Shield to farm as well. In 1849 Monseigneur Guiges, head of the Roman Catholic order of Oblate Fathers, travelled up the Gatineau River. He noted in his records the presence of fourteen French Canadian families at Lac St. Marie in Hincks Township and sixty in the Gracefield area, the centre of lumbering at that time. As new pockets of French settlement were established in the more remote reaches of the central and northern Gatineau Valley, the Roman Catholic church was quick to organize parishes and send out priests to serve the new communities. In addition, the Oblate Fathers were instrumental, in 1849, in the founding of an Algonquin Indian mission near the present site of Maniwaki. They succeeded in obtaining part of the township as an Indian Reserve with land for a village which they named Notre-Dame-du-Désert, the present Maniwaki.
In 1889 the Quebec government published a book which brought together existing reports about surveyed townships and explored territories in the province. The Gatineau Valley by this time was well known. Surveyors had penetrated to the northern reaches of the area and the townships were surveyed at least in outline. All township surveyors had diligently recorded their observations about the agricultural capabilities of their areas. The reports, for the most part, were optimistic about the area's farming potential, a fact that was characteristic of early accounts of Shield lands in most parts of Quebec and Ontario. Even when unfavorable comments were reported the surveyors were anxious to balance these with more positive remarks. For example, McArthur, writing of Hincks Township in 1888, stated: "The surface of the soil in this township is uneven and stony and dotted with a large number of lakes: not more than 40 percent can be estimated as arable: but on the other hand, this is very fertile and the crops are exceIlent."
Settlement advanced in a slow but steady fashion northwards in the Gatineau Valley. For example, in 1861 Masham a southerly township had 246 landowners; Hincks approximately twenty-five miles to the north had thirty-seven; Bouchette another twenty-five miles farther north had thirty- five; and Aumond a similar distance still farther upstream had six. By 1891 these totals had all risen. The rate of increase itself rose from south to north corresponding with the availability of land.
No spatial or temporal trends are evident from average farm sizes to the four townships in 1861, 1891, and 1911. In these years farm size differences are accounted for largely by varying amounts of unimproved land, with a slight decrease in the amount of improved land toward the north. The principal crops produced were oats, hay, and potatoes. Small quantities of grains such as barley and wheat were also raised but wheat was no longer as important as in the 1840s. In addition the average farm maintained a few animals. Characteristically there were two working animals (horses or oxen), two or three dairy cows, a few other cattle, two or three sheep and pigs, and a variety of fowl.
Gatineau Valley farming was, in the second half of the nineteenth century, marginal in nature and partially maintained by the lumbering industry. This industry provided the farmer with a ready market for any produce he had to sell as well as with off-season employment. These factors account for the similarity of farm operations throughout the valley.
Dr. Helen E. Parson, a native of Ottawa who spends summers in the Gatineau, is Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario.
This article is an excerpt from "Rural Land Use Change: A Study of the Gatineau Valley of Quebec” — a part of a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Kentucky.
In the 1977 edition of ‘Up the Gatineau!' Dr. Parson had an article — PINE TO PULP: THE TIMBER TRADE ON THE GATINEAU RIVER — which was also developed from this dissertation.