ALLES' S COHNEH Memphremagog Lake (Barnum) SHELDON (Hoskins ) Lham VEEMON DANVILLE (Kitteridge ; MGNTPELIEK LS tevens) (Jewell) (Purinton) NEW H A M P 'S H I~R- K^ DANBY Bull SALISBUHY SOHEH-(IOBTIi (Freeman) (Austin BEDFOSD THE EXODUS HANCOCK (Hall) Solid lines indicate the direction, not the actual itinerary. (Taber) FARNHAM MEETING AT ALLEN'S CORNER: Where the Members Came from The BULLETIN of Friends Historical Association VoL 50Autumn Number, 1961No. 2 STORY OF THE FARNHAM MEETING By S. A. Zielinski* The history of the Farnham Meeting is unique in some respects. It was the only Quaker meeting in Lower Canada in the nineteenth century. It was isolated from other Canadian meetings by a distance of some four hundred miles. It started in a wilderness, and it lasted for nearly a century: much longer than all meetings in Vermont. It covered an exceptionally large territory, and at die peak of its development it counted more than 100 members. All families with membership in die meeting came from New England , and many of them were already interrelated when they came to Canada. The name "Farnham Meeting" comes from East Farnham Township, and not from the town of Farnham, Quebec. The village where most of the members of the meeting lived was called *S. A. Zielinski, a Friend living in Fulford, Quebec, Canada, is a craftsman; during the year 1960-1961 he taught crafts at The Meeting School, West Rindge, New Hampshire. A fuller (80-page) offset version of his history of the Farnham Meeting (with five maps, twelve photographs , and bibliography) is available from him at Fulford, Quebec, at $1.95 per copy. 67 68Bulletin of Friends Historical Association Allen's Corner, only much later changed to East Farnham. The Township of East Farnham belongs to Brome County, and this in turn to an area called "The Eastern Townships," now in the Province of Quebec. One remarkable fact distinguishes this area from the rest of the Province: it was colonized exclusively by English-speaking settlers. The western part of the Eastern Townships, or the territory which is of interest to us, covers roughly some 1500 square miles. It lies directly north of the Vermont border. In 1800 all this area was as wild as when it was left by the last glacial epoch. Abenaqui Indians "inhabited" it in a manner of speaking, but the density of population was about the same as in the Sahara desert, and thanks to Robert Rogers's expedition of 1759, it was actually lower than in times of Carrier. The country was covered by forest and swamps. Lakes there were few by Canadian standards, and the only open spaces were small "beaver meadows." When beavers build dams and make artificial shallow lakes, they also kill all the trees in the flooded area. When a beaver settlement is abandoned, and the dam destroyed by natural or other causes, the lake becomes a meadow. These beaver meadows were the only source of hay for the first settlers, who soon discovered the origin of the meadows, and by destroying beaver dams were able to increase the hay-producing area. The woods were at first of little value to the settler except for fuel and building materials. There was no question of marketing lumber, or any of the by-products with the single exception of potash. The production of "black salts" (raw wood ashes) was comparatively easy and helped clearing the land. As soon as the first traders were established in the wilderness, they built "asheries" or refineries of black salts, which then could be shipped to the market at a better price. There were plenty of wild animals, but only a few dangerous to human beings. Bears, wolves, mountain lions attacked livestock, and were a real nuisance, and so to a lesser degree were lynxes, foxes, wolverines, raccoons. On the other hand, moose, caribou, and deer must have been rather welcome as food. But it seems that the worst enemy of both men and cattle was a fly called "moose fly," possibly the same as our deer fly. All in all, the woods must have been quite lively around 1800. Story of Farnham Meeting69 The first step a settler had...