- Source: Shawville, Quebec
Shawville is a town located in the Pontiac Regional County Municipality in the administrative region of Outaouais in western Quebec, Canada.
History
At the end of the 1860s, a group of citizens from Clarendon Centre, under the leadership of James Shaw (1818–1877), separated the municipality from the township of Clarendon. While they had originally planned on naming the new entity "Daggville," after the name of a pioneer family, they opted instead to name it "Shawville" after James Shaw promised to donate 0.8 ha (2.0 acres) of land to the new municipality. Shawville was officially established in 1874 and was populated by Irish Protestant immigrants. John Dale Jr, who was mayor of Clarendon at the time, resigned to become the first mayor of the newly formed township of Shawville in 1874.
The municipality has a Methodist church that was built in Shawville in 1835, while the Catholic Parish of Saint-Alexandre-de-Clarendon opened its doors in 1840. This church would later be renamed Sainte-Mélanie and still later as Saint-Jacques-le-Majeur in 1917.
In recent times, Shawville has been the site of several conflicts between local shopkeepers and the Office québécois de la langue française over the province's language laws.
Geography
The town is an enclave within the municipality of Clarendon. Shawville is situated approximately 75 kilometres (47 mi) west of Gatineau and 35 kilometres (22 mi) southeast of Fort-Coulonge.
Demographics
= Population
== Language
=Shawville is a majority anglophone (with over 85 percent of its residents listing English as their first language in the 2021 Canadian census) and Protestant (75%) community. This is unusual in Quebec, a province that is majority French-speaking and Roman Catholic.
Culture
The town is characterized by its red-brick buildings. Unlike most municipalities in Quebec, it has no Catholic church. Shawville is home to an elementary school, a high school, a regional hospital, and the Society of Rural Physicians of Canada (SRPC) national head office. Its businesses are mostly small and family-run.
The Shawville Fair, held the first weekend in September, is the town's major event. It has run every year since 1856 and includes typical county fair features such as livestock shows, auctions, truck pulls, demolition derbies, art/craft/hobby shows, diverse food stands and a midway. In recent years, it has drawn headline entertainers such as Terri Clark, Stompin' Tom Connors, Paul Brandt, April Wine, Dean Brody and Corb Lund, with total attendance reaching around 50,000. It did not run for the first time in its history in 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sports
Shawville is represented in the Eastern Ontario Junior B Hockey League by the Shawville Pontiacs.
Local government
List of former mayors:
Albert Armstrong (...–2013)
Sandra A. Murray (2013–2021)
Bill McCleary (2021–present)
Notable people
Famous people from Shawville include the former general manager of the Ottawa Senators, Bryan Murray, Terry Murray (current assistant coach of the Buffalo Sabres and former coach of the L.A. Kings), Tim Murray (former general manager of the Buffalo Sabres), NHL legend Frank "The Shawville Express" Finnigan and race horse owner and lawyer Clay Horner. Former NHL referee Blaine Angus also comes from the area.
Ray Harris, a prominent singer-songwriter in the Ottawa area, was raised in Shawville and later wrote the song Shawville Girl. Robert Taylor Telford, who founded the Alberta city Leduc in 1891, was born in Shawville in 1860.
See also
List of anglophone communities in Quebec
List of municipalities in Quebec
Pontiac Pacific Junction Railway
References
Finnigan, Joan (1992). Old Scores, New Goals: The Story of the Ottawa Senators. Kingston, Ontario: Quarry Press. ISBN 978-1-55082-041-6.
External links
Official town site
Kata Kunci Pencarian:
- Shawville, Quebec
- Western Quebec seismic zone
- Society of Rural Physicians of Canada
- Valu-mart
- Francis Conroy Sullivan
- Shawville Pontiacs
- Pontiac High School (Quebec)
- Floyd Laughren
- Municipal history of Quebec
- English-speaking Quebecers
