Mont-Saint-Hilaire () is an off-island

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate ...

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-pe ...

in southeastern

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirteen ...

, Canada, on the

Richelieu River The Richelieu River () is a river of Quebec, Canada, and a major right-bank tributary of the St. Lawrence River. It rises at Lake Champlain, from which it flows northward through Quebec and empties into the St. Lawrence. It was formerly ...

in the Regional County Municipality of La Vallée-du-Richelieu. The population as of the Canada 2011 Census was 18,200. The city is named after the

Mont Saint-Hilaire Mont Saint-Hilaire (English: Mount Saint-Hilaire; abe, Wigwômadenizibo; see for other names) is an isolated hill, high, in the Montérégie region of southern Quebec. It is about thirty kilometres east of Montreal, and immediately east of the ...

. A significant deposit of the semi-precious mineral

sodalite Sodalite ( ) is a tectosilicate mineral with the formula , with royal blue varieties widely used as an ornamental gemstone. Although massive sodalite samples are opaque, crystals are usually transparent to translucent. Sodalite is a member of the ...

is located near Mont-Saint-Hilaire.

History

Jean-Baptiste Hertel de Rouville Jean-Baptiste Hertel de Rouville (26 October 1668 – 30 June 1722) was a colonial military officer of New France in the French Marines in Canada. He is best known in North America for leading the raid on Deerfield, in western Province of Mass ...

was granted the seignory of the region in 1694. By 1745 a mountain village had been formed with the first chapel being built in 1798 near the Richelieu River. Nearly twenty years later, in 1822, a ferry operating between Beloeil and Mont-Saint-Hilaire came into service. A bridge, enabling Beloeil and St. Hilaire to be connected by rail, was built in 1848 by the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railway. The Campbell family, owners of the mountain after that of Rouville, sold the mountain to a British officer, Brigadier-General

Andrew Gault Andrew Hamilton Gault (18 August 1882 – 28 November 1958) was a Canadian Army officer and British politician. At his own expense, he raised the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, the last privately raised regiment in the British Empi ...

, in whose ownership it remained for 45 years. Gault then bequeathed the mountain to

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill University ...

before his death in 1958.

Demographics

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; french: Statistique Canada), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and cultur ...

, Mont-Saint-Hilaire had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021. Population trend: Mother tongue language (2006)2006 Statistics Canada Community Profile: Mont-Saint-Hilaire, Quebec
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Transportation

Mont-Saint-Hilaire is served by the

Mont-Saint-Hilaire Mont-Saint-Hilaire () is an off-island suburb of Montreal in southeastern Quebec, Canada, on the Richelieu River in the Regional County Municipality of La Vallée-du-Richelieu. The population as of the Canada 2011 Census was 18,200. The city ...

commuter rail station on the

Réseau de transport métropolitain Exo, officially known as Réseau de transport métropolitain (RTM; en, Metropolitan Transportation Network), is a public transport system in Greater Montreal, including the Island of Montreal, Laval ( Île Jésus), and communities along both ...

's (RTM)

Mont-Saint-Hilaire line Mont-Saint-Hilaire (also designated exo3) is a commuter railway line in Greater Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is operated by Exo, the operator of public transport services across this region. The Mont-Saint-Hilaire line was operated by the Ca ...

. Local bus service is provided by the RTM's Vallée du Richelieu sector. In 1864, Canada's worst rail disaster occurred here when a passenger train passed a red signal and fell off an open

swing bridge A swing bridge (or swing span bridge) is a movable bridge that has as its primary structural support a vertical locating pin and support ring, usually at or near to its center of gravity, about which the swing span (turning span) can then pi ...

into the

, killing around 99 people.

Attractions

left, Museum of Fine Arts in February 2022 *The Gault Nature Reserve on

includes over a thousand hectares of primeval forest. Owned by McGill University, the nature reserve is used for research and recreation. *The Museum of Fine Arts (Le Musée des beaux-arts) of Mont-Saint-Hilaire is the major art museum on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River. It was founded in 1993 to promote the work of regional artists

Jordi Bonet Jordi Bonet i Godó, known professionally as Jordi Bonet (7 May 1932 – 25 December 1979), was a Spanish-born Canadian painter, ceramist, muralist, and sculptor who worked principally in Quebec. Life and work Born in Barcelona, Spain of Cata ...

, Paul-Émile Borduas and

Ozias Leduc Ozias Leduc (October 8, 1864 - June 16, 1955) is one of Quebec's early painters. He was born in Saint-Hilaire-de-Rouville. Leduc produced many portraits, still lifes and landscapes, as well as religious works. Biography Leduc was mainly self-t ...

. Exhibitions also feature art from the area, such as ''Saint-Hilaire et les Automatistes'' in 1997, and ''Leduc, Borduas et le paysage de Saint-Hilaire'' in 2008, as well as other Quebec artists such as

Jean-Paul Lemieux Jean Paul Lemieux, (1904 - 1990) was one of the foremost twentieth century painters in Canada. He worked in several different styles, as represented by his five artistic periods. Biography He was born in Quebec City, where he also died. He wa ...

and Nancy Petry. *Art Station *Art centre Ozias Leduc *Manoir Rouville-Campbell *Saint-Hilaire church

Photo gallery

Saint-Hilaire (Québec)-Cartier résidentiel du secteur de la gare-Rue du Grand Tronc-2022-02-05.jpg, Residential area of rue du Grand Tronc, opposite the Saint-Hilaire train station (QC) in February 2022 Saint-Hilaire-Hotel de ville-Monument en arche à l'accueil-2022-02-05.jpg, Reception arch in front of the town hall of Saint-Hilaire Mont Saint-Hilaire-Vue de l'intersection rue du Centre-Civique et Boul. Honorius-Charbonneau-2022-02-05.jpg, View of Mont Saint-Hilaire, the intersection of boulevard Honorius-Charbonneau and rue du Centre-Civique Mont-Saint-Hilaire-QC-Vue de la montagne à partir du stationnement de la gare ferroviaire-2022-02-05.jpg, Mont Saint-Hilaire (Quebec) seen from the train station parking lot in winter 2022. Mont-Saint-Hilaire-QC-Croix de chemin-2022-02-05.jpg, Wayside cross in Mont-Saint-Hilaire (corner of Chemin des Patriotes and rue de Lisbonne)

Education

The town is home to 4 primary schools: Au-fil-de-l'eau (659 pupils), de l'Aquarelle (354 pupils) and de la Pommeraie (383 pupils) and Paul-Émile-Borduas. There are also 2 secondary schools, including Ozias-Leduc, with 1,480 studentsand Collège Saint-Hilaire, a private high school that receives students from the region. The

South Shore Protestant Regional School Board The South Shore Protestant Regional School Board (SSPRSB) was a Protestant Christian school district in Greater Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It served the South Shore region and it was headquartered in St. Lambert. The district operated elementary a ...

previously served the municipality.King, M.J. (Chairperson of the board).
South Shore Protestant Regional School Board
(St. Johns, PQ). ''

The News and Eastern Townships Advocate The ''News and Eastern Townships Advocate'' is a newspaper based in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec started on January 27, 1848. The headquarters for the paper were destroyed in 1942 during a fire, which resulted in the loss of the building and f ...

''. Volume 119, No. 5. Thursday December 16, 1965. p. 2. Retrieved from

Google News Google News is a news aggregator service developed by Google. It presents a continuous flow of links to articles organized from thousands of publishers and magazines. Google News is available as an app on Android, iOS, and the Web. Google rel ...

on November 23, 2014.

Notable residents

Laurent Duvernay-Tardif Laurent Duvernay-Tardif (; born February 11, 1991) is a Canadian football guard for the New York Jets of the National Football League (NFL). He played university football and attended medical school at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, be ...

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

player for the

New York Jets The New York Jets are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The J ...

of the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...

Louis Domingue Louis Boileau-Domingue (born March 6, 1992) is a Canadian professional ice hockey goaltender for the Hartford Wolf Pack of the American Hockey League (AHL) while under contract with the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League (NHL). Domi ...

, ice hockey player for the Calgary Flames

References

External links

Town of Mont-Saint-Hilaire
{{Authority control Cities and towns in Quebec Incorporated places in La Vallée-du-Richelieu Regional County Municipality Greater Montreal