Colonization Efforts of the Twentieth Century: Lawrence Colony Revisited

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the federal and Quebec governments promoted "back-to-the-land" colonization schemes to draw the unemployed to unsettled rural lands where they would become self-sustaining farmers. One such unsettled area was Newport Township in the Eastern Townships. In 1936, 26 families from the Eastern Townships had moved to Newport Township where they were promised 100-acre plots and government aid to get started; by 1939, 49 families, mostly all English-speaking and Protestant, had settled in the area that would become known as Lawrence Colony. Thirty years later, in 1969, only 17 of the original 49 families were still on their lots in Lawrence. Of these, only seven had been given deeds to their farms. The author outlines the causes of how Lawrence Colony over the thirty years went from a beacon of hope for those fallen on hard times during the Depression to where the hard times and poverty were still part of the everyday existence for many.

Quebec Heritage News

Vol. 17

no. 3

Summer 2023

15-17

en