Shawville, Quebec

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 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 km west of Gatineau and 35 km southeast of Fort-Coulonge.

Demographics

Population

| 1921 |735 | 1931 |801 | 1941 |892 | 1951 |1159 | 1956 |1281 | 1961 |1534 | 1966 |1652 | 1971 |1745 | 1976 |1724 | 1981 |1608 | 1986 |1575 | 1991 |1591 | 1996 |1632 | 2001 |1582 | 2006 |1587 | 2011 |1664 | 2016 |1587 | 2021 |1668

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), and NHL legend Frank "The Shawville Express" Finnigan.

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.

References

References

1. "Shawville". Ministère des Affaires municipales et de l'Habitation.
2. "Shawville, Municipalité (MÉ) Census Profile, 2021 Census of Population". Government of Canada - Statistics Canada.
4. "Shawville (Municipalité)". Commission de toponymie du Québec.
5. (19 December 2003). "'Shawville posse' language incident goes to court". [[CBC.ca]].
6. [[Canada 1996 Census. 1996]], [[Canada 2001 Census. 2001]], [[Canada 2006 Census. 2006]], [[Canada 2011 Census. 2011]] census
7. (July 1973). "1971 Census of Canada - Population Census Subdivisions (Historical)". Statistics Canada.
8. "Shawville Girl".