Compton's first French- Canadian residents lived in the established English-speaking communities as labourers and artisans long before they began colonizing the uninhabited areas in the late 1840s. However, these families either tended to be assimilated or failed to put down roots. Not until late in the nineteenth century, after the French Canadians had colonized most of the remaining arable land and taken the factory jobs in the nearby cities, did they begin to change the cultural character of the older rural communities. In fact, the small southwestern villages maintained their English-Canadian character longer than the countryside because their industries could not compete with those in the cities, and older English- speaking farmers tended to retire close to their churches, shops and friends.
As late as 1880 Jean-Baptiste-Moise St. Laurent was the first French Canadian to settle permanently in the village of Compton. His father had moved from Trois-RiviΦres to Sherbrooke in 1858, and he himself (shown here second from the right with a son and two neighbours) became a general store keeper in Compton. He married an English-speaking Roman Catholic and raised a bicultural family. One of his sons, Louis, became Prime Minister of Canada. The dirt road and hitching posts indicate that this photograph predates the automobile era.
