This web page is the updated version of the guidebook to heritage buildings, mostly on the old highway 8 and present highway 148, through the Municipality of Pontiac, between Aylmer, Québec (part of the city of Gatineau) and Pontiac County (MRC Pontiac).

The first edition of the book (printed in 2000) has 10 maps and more than 100 colour photographs. It is no longer in print, but is in the city of Gatineau library in Aylmer (Bibliothèque Lucy-Faris) and the Aylmer Heritage Association library.

If you have information about historic houses that have been left out, more details on any of the houses or their builders or owners, or ancient or modern photos, please contact Mo at:

29 croissant Rose, Breckenridge, Pontiac, QC  J0X 2G0

email: molaidlaw@videotron.ca

Telephone: (819) 682-5371

Heritage houses

According to the 1861 census and agricultural census for Eardley and Onslow townships (now the municipality of Pontiac), most settlers were farmers. For example in Eardley district one (ranges 1 to 6, now Breckenridge), there were 27 farm households, including William Erwin’s family who also kept a tavern, and five families who didn’t own farms including a wheelwright,Vincent Bodine (Beaudoin), a blacksmith, Moses Pacquet, and a teamster, Menazie Bélisle. Many of the farmers’ family names will also be familiar, although the spelling may have changed: Klock, Moore, Dozois, Foran, Davis, Jowsey, Herdman, Perry, Lusk, Perrault, Hayworth, Breckenridge, Borgeois, Sheehan, and Derois for example, in Eardley district one. Many of the farmers, their sons and farm-workers worked in the lumber camps in the winter.

Most farmhouses in this area, as recorded in the 1861 census, were one storey log houses, but there were also several “one-and-a-half-storey”, with the windows of the top floor above the eaves, also built of hewn or sawn log. Many had a centre door, and a “cross-gabled peak” as in the photo.

Usually a summer kitchen would be attached at the back giving the house a T or L shaped plan. This typical one-and-a-half-storey farmhouse design is the local “vernacular”. Today these houses are covered with clapboard or stucco and are among the oldest in the area (from 1825). A few stone houses were built in the same style, such as the J.C. Mohr house in Onslow township (1846), Richard Cruice house in Aylmer (1850s) and William Herdman house in Eardley township (about 1862).

Next ->

Eardley Road, Aylmer      Hwy 148, Breckenridge     Hwy 148, Heyworth, Luskville, Eardley

Highway 148, Onslow     Village of Quyon to Wyman   Side trip to Pontiac Village          

Books about the area, heritage houses and early families

Return to top

Updated: 30 May, 2009

Text and maps by Mo Laidlaw. Photographs by Mo Laidlaw unless credited to Armand Ducharme.