Huntingdon is a small town in

Huntingdon County Huntingdon is a market town in the Huntingdonshire district in Cambridgeshire, England. The town was given its town charter by King John in 1205. It was the county town of the historic county of Huntingdonshire. Oliver Cromwell was born there ...

in the Haut-Saint-Laurent Regional County Municipality and the Montérégie region of the province of

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Government of Canada, 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 ...

, Canada. The population as of the Canada 2011 Census was 2,457. The town is southwest of

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- ...

, and from the border with

New York State New York, officially the State of New York, is a U.S. state, state in the Northeastern United States. It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City. With a total area of , New York is the List of U.S. ...

History

The town was settled by British soldiers after the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It ...

and the fertile land in the area led to a successful farming economy. Once the fear of attack from the Americans was gone, in the 1820s businessmen established lumber and grist mills on the banks of the Chateauguay River. During the first few decades of the 20th century, when transport from major urban centers to the outlying rural areas became economically feasible, the textile industry began expanding at a rapid rate in various towns throughout the province of Quebec. By the 1930s, Huntingdon was home to a small but thriving textile industry founded by Alex Fawcett & Hiram Leach as Leach Textiles. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, entrepreneurs François Cleyn and Alec Tinker acquired the textile businesses in Huntingdon and built their company, Cleyn & Tinker Limited, into one of the most successful woolen mills in all of Canada. In Huntingdon, the business expanded to five interconnected operations around the town. The decades of the 1950s through to the early part of the 1970s saw the town prosper and the company acquire subsidiaries in

Sherbrooke, Quebec Sherbrooke ( ; ) is a city in southern Quebec, Canada. It is at the confluence of the Saint-François and Magog rivers in the heart of the Estrie administrative region. Sherbrooke is also the name of a territory equivalent to a regional count ...

and in

Castlecomer, Kilkenny Castlecomer ( Irish: ''Caislean an Chumai'' meaning "the castle at the confluence of the waters") is a town in the north of County Kilkenny, Ireland. It is positioned at the meeting of N78 and R694 roads about north of Kilkenny city. At the ...

, Ireland.

Recent history

Huntingdon was also home to Huntingdon Mills (Canada) Ltd., another textile business and a significant employer in the town. In December 2004, the company filed for bankruptcy protection and announced they would have to close, putting more than 215 employees out of work. Cleyn & Tinker too announced it would be closing its operations in the town in April 2005. Shortly after the announcement, some of the company's assets and supply contracts were acquired by the

Greensboro, North Carolina Greensboro (; formerly Greensborough) is a city in and the county seat of Guilford County, North Carolina, United States. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, third-most populous city in North Carolina after Charlotte, North Car ...

based International Textile Group, Inc. who have a partnership with

China Ting Group China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, a textile manufacturer based in

Kabul Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Ac ...

, Afghanistan. On January 28, 2005, Mayor Stéphane Gendron announced that the town was purchasing the five textile plants that were closing with the expectation that they could be sold to new businesses. The small town had to deal with a substantial increase in teen vandalism. In August 2004 a controversial municipal bylaw went into effect that placed a 10:30 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. curfew on unsupervised children aged 15 and under. The controversial bylaw held parents responsible for their children's activities through fines if a child was caught in violation of the curfew. After parents filed a legal action to have the bylaw overturned, the Council suspended application of the bylaw.

Government

Huntingdon's mayor is Andre Brunette. At the federal level, Huntingdon is part of the Salaberry—Suroît riding and is represented by Claude DeBellefeuille of the

Bloc Québécois The Bloc Québécois (BQ; , " Quebecer Bloc") is a federal political party in Canada devoted to Quebec nationalism and the promotion of Quebec sovereignty. The Bloc was formed by Members of Parliament (MPs) who defected from the federal Progre ...

. Provincially, it is part of the electoral district of

Huntingdon Huntingdon is a market town in the Huntingdonshire district in Cambridgeshire, England. The town was given its town charter by King John in 1205. It was the county town of the historic county of Huntingdonshire. Oliver Cromwell was born there ...

and is represented by

Claire IsaBelle Claire IsaBelle is a Canadian politician, who was elected to the National Assembly of Quebec in the 2018 provincial election.Coalition Avenir Québec.

Demographics

In the

2021 Census of Population The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sli ...

conducted by Statistics Canada, Huntingdon 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.

Infrastructure

Transportation

The

CIT du Haut-Saint-Laurent The Exo du Haut-Saint-Laurent sector provides a bus service, operated under the auspices of Le Haut-Saint-Laurent Regional County Municipality, in southwestern Quebec, Canada. The CITHSL serves the communities, within the region, of Godmanchester, ...

formerly provided commuter and local bus service, until it was cut back to Ormstown and Sainte-Martine. Current service is provided by the Haut-Saint-Laurent regional county municipality.

Media

The town is served by a fortnightly English newspaper, ''The Gleaner,'' with a French section called, ''Le Gleaner.'' It was founded in 1863 by

Robert Sellar Robert Sellar (1828 in Scotland – 1900 in Melbourne, Australia) emigrated from Scotland in 1853 and became a prominent merchant in Melbourne, Australia where he was the business partner of James McCulloch who went on to become a Premier of ...

(1841-1919) under the banner ''Canadian Gleaner'', changing its name to the ''Huntington Gleaner'' in 1912. The Huntingdon Gleaner was owned by various family businesses for most of its history. Even though it was technically a private business, local ownership conveyed the title of ‘community newspaper’ as is typical across Canada. Eventually, the Huntingdon Gleaner added a French language section in 1993 called La Source (back-to-back format) and became known as ''The Gleaner/La Source''. As consolidation in the print media began at the turn of this century, The Gleaner/La Source was sold by the local owner to what became a series of re-sales to various media chains: Les Hebdos Montérégiens in 1985, Quebecor in 2011 and finally Transcontinental in 2013. In 2015, The Gleaner/La Source ceased publication as a standalone newspaper, with The Gleaner becoming an 8-page insert in the regional free-distribution weekly Le Journal St-Francois (Valleyfield), and La Source being closed completely. In 2017, Transcontinental sold Le Journal St-Francois (including The Gleaner) to a regional media company, Gravité Média. In 2018, Gravité Média reached out to the English-speaking community in the Chateauguay Valley to see if there was any interest in acquiring the title. Rather than simply close The Gleaner, Gravité Média wanted to respect the heritage integral to the publication and provide the opportunity for the English-speaking community to continue to be served by a community newspaper. In November 2018, a public meeting was held in Ormstown, along with representatives from Gravité Média, to discuss the possibilities surrounding the community acquiring the rights to continue publishing The Gleaner. From that meeting, a “Future of the Gleaner” steering committee was formed, followed shortly by the establishment of a non-profit organization the Chateauguay Valley Community Information Services and discussions were held with Gravité Media to acquire the assets of ''The Gleaner'' (title, web domain, etc.) and a transfer agreement was signed in May 2019. In June 2019, The Gleaner was re-launched with a souvenir print version and a new website, followed by monthly editions in August, September, October and November 2019 and a fortnightly edition stating in January 2020.

Sport

Huntingdon was the midway point of the

Boston–Montreal–Boston The original Boston-Montreal-Boston ''(BMB)'' was as a 1200 km randonnée organized in 1988 by a group of cyclists, originally living in the Boston, Massachusetts (US) area. The ride started as an out-and-back course from Newton, Massachuset ...

cycling event.

References

External links

Huntingdon official websiteCommission de la toponymie du Québec. Ville de Huntingdon
{{Authority control Cities and towns in Quebec Incorporated places in Le Haut-Saint-Laurent Regional County Municipality