Quyon is a village that is part of
Pontiac, Quebec
Pontiac is a municipality in the Outaouais region of western Quebec, Canada, on the north shore of the Ottawa River. It is part of Les Collines-de-l'Outaouais Regional County Municipality, located within Canada's National Capital Region. It should ...
, in the
Les Collines-de-l'Outaouais Regional County Municipality
Les Collines-de-l'Outaouais (French for "The hills of the Outaouais") is a regional county municipality in the Outaouais region of western Quebec, Canada. The region nearly encircles the City of Gatineau, which is to the south. Its administrative ...
(MRC des Collines).
History
Already the site of the Sainte-Marie Mission, the village was founded in 1848 by
John Egan, a lumber baron of the Ottawa Valley and mayor of Aylmer from 1847 to 1855.
It derived its name from the Quyon River, a tributary of the Ottawa River that was used by Egan for
log driving
Log driving is a means of moving logs (sawn tree trunks) from a forest to sawmills and pulp mills downstream using the current of a river. It was the main transportation method of the early logging industry in Europe and North America.
Histor ...
, and was originally spelled "Quio", from the Native Algonquin word ''kweia'' (pronounced "quia"), meaning "Smaller River" or "sandy bottom river".
Some of the earliest English settlers were Scottish
United Empire Loyalists
United Empire Loyalists (or simply Loyalists) is an honorific title which was first given by the 1st Lord Dorchester, the Governor of Quebec, and Governor General of The Canadas, to American Loyalists who resettled in British North America duri ...
, who were given free land in 1783 by the British Crown to thank them for their loyalty during the American Revolution. The area was heavily settled by
Irish immigrants
The Irish diaspora ( ga, Diaspóra na nGael) refers to ethnic Irish people and their descendants who live outside the island of Ireland.
The phenomenon of migration from Ireland is recorded since the Early Middle Ages,Flechner and Meeder, The ...
during the mid-19th century after the
Great Famine forced many to emigrate for their survival. The town was incorporated on January 1, 1875, and its spelling was changed to "Quyon" to provide a compromise pronunciation equally acceptable to both French- and English-speaking residents.
[James Robinson, ''How Quyon Came to Be'', 2006] It experienced a period of prosperity because of the railway built by the Union Forwarding Company.
The village municipality of Quyon, along with the neighbouring townships of North Onslow, South Onslow, and Eardley, was amalgamated into the municipality of Pontiac in 1975.
See also
*
Pontiac Pacific Junction Railway
The Pontiac Pacific Junction Railway Company (PPJR) was a Canadian railway that operated in the upper Ottawa River valley in western Quebec and northeastern Ontario, Canada.
The railway ran from Aylmer through Quyon, Shawville, Fort Coulonge, ...
- former railway running through Quyon
References
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Communities in Outaouais