In 1861 the second wave of French- Canadian colonists in Compton County was introduced to Hereford Township, at the southern extremity of the county, through the efforts of two priests from the MontrΘal region. With a group of laymen, they purchased about 8,000 hectares of crown land in the northeastern corner of the township and proceeded to oversee the construction of colonization roads in the area. English-speaking Townshippers, and especially their M.L.A.s, had already begun to protest the trend towards allocating road funds to Catholic clergy. In this case they could claim that the priests were spending the money to benefit themselves as land speculators. As a result, no road grants were forthcoming under the Liberal Sandfield Macdonald-L.-V. Sicotte Ministry of 1862-1864. Construction was resumed in 1865, so that by 1866 the first access road to Coaticook and the rest of the province was finally completed.
As in the other French-Canadian colonies of the Eastern Townships, one of the first steps was to find a site for the church. This building would become the centre of the community, enabling the priest to maintain a strict supervision over all aspects of his charges' lives. Experience proved that in the parishes where French Canadians were scattered among a Protestant, English-speaking population the authority of the Catholic Church declined to an alarming extent, manifested by negligence in payment of ecclesiastical taxes and poor attendance at Easter Mass. Paradoxically, though the parish church was to form the main cohesive bond of the new community, its location frequently became the focus of a bitter quarrel. For economic as well as social and spiritual reasons, each family wished to have the church as close to its property as possible. Furthermore, it was not always the parishioners who were the troublemakers. In the case of Saint- Venant, the three factions proposing different locations were all led by priests. In 1864 the bishop chose a location near the mill site by the small white bridge shown here on the left favoured by Father Durocher, one of the colony's founders, but the chapel was still not completed two years later. The bishop appointed an investigator who was influenced by the cure of Compton, and reportedly by his own desire to make a speculative profit, to choose a site completely removed from the northeastern section of the township. Finally, Father Champeaux, also a founder, came closest to victory when the church was built on its present day location.
This view from the west reveals that the construction of a church did not always guarantee a village's growth. Perhaps because the stream was too small to operate a large sawmill, Saint-Venant was soon outstripped by other mill sites in the area. The photograph gives a good impression of the hilly terrain settled by the French Canadians in Compton County. It also reveals that apart from the obvious differences in age, there was little to distinguish their communities in appearance from those of their English-speaking neighbours. The older buildings seen here, including the convent to the left of the church and the presbytery to the right, are of the standard post-1850 style, and, in contrast to the long-lot pattern of settlement in the seigneuries, the fields are relatively square with widely-scattered farmsteads.
