History of the Archives

On November 24, 1960, 28 people gathered in Shawville to plan historical activities. Three items emerged as the main reasons for forming a historical society:

  1. Local history archives
  2. Museum
  3. Genealogical index

Interest was great so a planning meeting was held at the Shawville High School for the first meeting of the Pontiac Historical Society on March 28, 1961. Dr. W. Hodgins was the Chairman and Gordon Crouse was the Secretary of the Organizing Committee. The first official meeting of the Historical Society was held on April 4, 1961. The Board of Directors, including their duties, were as follows:

  • Honorary President: Dr. R. Earle Dagg, Montreal
  • President: Dr. W. A. Hodgins
  • Vice President: Edgar Mulligan
  • Secretary: C. Gordon Crouse
  • Treasurer: Neil A. Drummond
  • Recording Secretary: Rev. Edmund N. McColl
  • Genealogical Chairman: Rev. Jos. E. Gravelle
  • Archivist: J. Fred Coyne
  • Historical Chairman: James C. McCuaig
  • Editor of Publications: Gordon Crouse
  • Other Directors: S. Wyman MacKechnie, Arthur Dagg, Walter Kilgour, Mr. and Mrs. Hosmer Turner, Dr. S. E. McDowell, Mrs. Bert C. Horner

In 1974 the railway station was acquired and in 1975 it was moved to the fairgrounds for a museum.

The Historical Society has encouraged and supported many historical projects. Rev. Jos. E. Gravelle’s genealogical records are stored in Ottawa at the National Archives. Gordon Crouse has collections at our Pontiac Archives.

In 1972, the Shawville-Clarendon-Thorne Historical Records Project, funded by the Opportunities for Youth program of the federal government, collected interviews by the people in the Shawville area for Shawville’s centennial year, 1873. The students involved were Jane Bretzlaff, Charles Dickson, Maydon Dods, John Hodgins and Brenda Strutt. These interviews and other documents were stored in the Town Hall Library.

The library was growing and so were the quantity of documents, so at a Historical Society meeting, Pearl McCleary suggested that we needed a separate building for the archival material. Venetia Crawford agreed and, together with Annie Gamble, the President of the Pontiac Historical Society, the seed for an archives was sown.

In 1985, the Pontiac Archives’s first site was at the home of Pearl McCleary, where she and Venetia Crawford indexed the documents that were found in the Town Hall. That same year, we received a grant from Quebec Cultural Affairs to help in finding a suitable location. After searching all over the county without success, Sharron Halligan, principal of Pontiac Elementary Schools, invited us to meet the School Board, who offered us the library classroom at Campbell’s Bay Elementary School, which became our first official home. Elsie Sparrow joined the team in 1986. The Pontiac Archives moved to Campbell’s Bay, opening January 5, 1987, with the official opening on March 23.

Yearly grants from Quebec Cultural Affairs until 1989 enabled us to become well established. The Archives continued through four subsequent moves, all with the help of volunteers.


The Archives in Campbell’s Bay, July 1998

The first two moves, arranged by Geneviève Cahill, were in the Social Planning Building on Elsie Street in Campbell’s Bay; from there we moved to Donald Paul’s building on Centre Street in Shawville.

Finally, in 2004 we moved to our beautiful new site on Main Street in Shawville, which is provided by the Municipalities of Clarendon and Shawville.

The support of the Quebec National Archives in Hull under Pierre-Louis Lapointe, local politicians, and donations of many organizations and individuals have all contributed to the success of the Pontiac Archives, which is presently run entirely by volunteers.

We are very interested in collecting family trees and other genealogical information which will help other people research their family trees. We are also interested in gathering minute books and any historical information about our Pontiac churches and organizations, and our industries such as lumbering, mining, farming and tourism. Photographs depicting our heritage that have been identified are extremely valuable.