BUILDING A THEATRE: SHERBROOKE AND ITS OPERA HOUSE^a

Jonathan Rittenhouse

After fruitless attempts by local politicians and businessmen to build an Opera House in Sherbrooke, the American entrepreneur F.M. Clement succeeded in 1901 where others had failed. This essay situates the building of this theatre in terms of both the specific local context and the broader issues of theatre touring and commercialisation.

Après des essais stériles par des politiciens et des hommes d'affaires locaux en vue de construire un Opera House à Sherbrooke, l'entrepreneur américain F.M. Clement a réussi en 1901 là où tous les autres avaient échoué. Cette étude situe la construction de ce théâtre à la fois en termes du contexte spécifique local et en ceux, plus larges, des tournées théâtrales et de leur commercialisation.

English-Canadians build theatres not theatre. Though reductive and unfair, such a summation of our theatre history outlines our bricks and mortar and colonial theatre history. English-Quebeckers, particularly self-conscious about both their colonising and their colonialism, were with John Molson and the building of Montreal's first Theatre Royal in 1825 constructing a real 'theatre' to be filled with 'real' imported professional actors. This need to construct culture and to import it can also be seen affecting another anglophone area of the province, the Eastern Townships. In this essay I will be investigating the way one aspect of our theatre history, the building of Opera Houses in the late nineteenth century, manifested itself in the Townships, specifically in the largest city of the area, Sherbooke.¹

The Opera House movement had an impact even in this rural area, and its manifestation, primarily in British cultural and imperial terms and American cultural and commercial terms, is a microcosm of the larger cultural, socio-economic development of the area. Across Canada, the development of the railway system in the 1880s and 1890s allowed even the smaller towns to be visited by American touring companies; no longer was popular theatre just a metropolitan event.

The Opera House is an icon of cultural coming of age and economic progress, and the community's self-conscious desire for a symbol of such maturity leads to its creation. The fact that Sherbrooke and the Townships took until the twentieth century to build one demonstrates not only a cultural/economic backwardness but also a certain reluctance to embrace whole-heartedly the urban and secular connotations of the Opera House symbol. By 1900 traditions of amateur productions in clubs, churches and schools were clearly serving the community's needs. While such performances helped fuel the desire for a proper place to see professional entertainment, they were also more directly in tune with local tastes and interests than those shows which might be available on the touring circuits. That such kinds of theatre, then, based on locally generated or created products, might have retarded construction or been perceived as more important than an Opera House are other possible factors in the theatrical equation.

Serious attempts were made to build an Opera House for Sherbrooke in 1882, 1897 and 1901. Local politicians and businessmen tried in 1882 and 1897 and on both occasions money, politics and inexperience in such ventures scuttled the projects. It took an outsider, the American F.M. Clement, who had money, political experience and theatrical expertise to put the right package together so that Sherbrooke could finally get its building in 1901. In the end, however, the Opera House had very little impact on Sherbrooke's theatrical fare even in the short term and only occasionally functioned as an innovative cultural force. What it did do was bring a bit more farce, melodrama and vaudeville to a city whose significantly increasing francophone population and traditionally conservative anglophone community were generally indifferent.

It could be said that Sherbrooke's Opera House was necessary and inevitable in that the city was developing and expanding in many different ways in the late nineteenth century. At the time of Confederation, Sherbrooke had become the largest metropolitan and commercial area in the Townships, with a population of around 4500 composed equally of anglophones and francophones. Up to 1890, the city rapidly developed its manufacturing and light industry sectors, and population more than doubled. The city became increasingly francophone (by 1900, about 60% of the population), but the recession of the nineties devastated it; the industrial sector and all development was stopped or cut back. ² The city, increasingly the regional centre of non-agricultural business activity, had no adequate space devoted to the arts. In order to meet demographic demand, in order to keep pace with the general cultural development in North America, in order to demonstrate that it was not colonial and provincial, the city needed its Opera House. On the other hand, Sherbrooke's Opera House was also unnecessary and irrelevant in that industrial, commercial and hence population development slowed down or reversed at the turn of the century and demand never, ever approached the potential supply. American capital attempted the exploitation of the Sherbrooke cultural market: the product promoted consisted of popular American culture and American versions of British culture. As this article will show, however, the attempt was never particularly successful. Indeed, it led to a severe narrowing of cultural offerings. In 1882 an Opera House might have represented the dominant anglophone community in both cultural and commercial terms and so become, to co-opt Raymond Williams's terminology,³ a palpable and integrated symbol of the dominant colonial culture. However, in 1901 the symbol was residual in both the cultural and commercial senses. Its future, instead, lay with the emergent culture of moving pictures and its commercial worth as real estate.

The Eastern Townships, that area south of Montreal and the seigneurial lands of the St. Lawrence extending to the United States border on the south and east, was settled first by the Abenaki and then in the late 1700s and 1800s by English-speaking immigrants from the United States and Great Britain. Significant francophone settlement came in the late 1800s. Farming was the major occupation and forestry and mining the major resource-based industries.

Prior to Confederation, music (sacred and profane) was by far the most common form of entertainment in the Townships. Concerts, bands, and choirs helped mark special events and social activities. Eventually, near the border at Stanstead and at Sherbrooke, amateur dramatic clubs started out; the occasional circus, magician and travelling exhibition would stray across the border or venture down from Montreal, but professional theatre was almost non-existent.

The earliest reference to professional theatre seems to be an advertisement in the 4 March, 1854 edition of the Sherbrooke Gazette and Eastern Townships Advertiser. On page 3 we find:

NOTICE. / A GRAND EXHIBITION / OF UNCLE TOM'S / CABIN will take place in Sherbrooke as soon as a sufficient number of tickets can be disposed of.

No one is willing to risk much here - neither the professionals nor the locals, and this laconic but straightforward notice is a clear indicator of the socio-economic reality of theatre in the Townships, not just in this early settler era but right through to the urbanisation at the end of the century. No city is big enough to guarantee a large house, no city is big enough to have any commercially viable large hall, no local is willing or able to put up the risk capital for something so ephemeral, so alien as theatre (even if, as in this case, its popular, non-alien 'exhibition' quality is emphasized).

Soon after Confederation and the town's incorporation, the municipal council of Sherbrooke was faced with certain cultural issues. Routinely they set out a rental fee for the Town Hall for residents and non-residents, and agreed to supply the Drawing or Art School with wood.⁴ Less routinely and more problematically, they dealt with two petitions (1872, 1873) from townsfolk asking for money to buy a set of brass band instruments. After ignoring the first petition, they sought legal opinion for the second and rejected the request claiming that the city did not have power to make such an appropriation.⁵

Something interesting was going on here. The people, supporting popular entertainment, went to local council for a subsidy. Council did nothing but the issue did not go away and council, unsure of the continuing claim on their interests and finances, sought legal guidance. The lawyers said no to funding and the political opportunity for visibly and palpably supporting popular culture was passed over. The result was a precedent against simple support for the arts which, in turn, revealed the skittishness and unease that political institutions felt (and still feel) about such an amorphous, problematic entity as culture.

In 1874, after a significant political struggle at council over tavern licenses where dry forces almost succeeded in suspending the annual licenses, council passed By-Law 71 which made 'provisions for the granting of licenses to Circuses, Theatrical Performances, and other exhibitions within the Town of Sherbrooke.' ⁶ Like taverns, theatre and popular culture were to be regulated (but not subsidized), and, to some degree, controlled by community standards.

In the next ten years a consistent tradition of amateur performances developed in the area and some professional companies, like those led by H. Price Webber, began to make regular, annual stops at the Town Halls of Sherbrooke, Stanstead, Coaticook, North Hatley and elsewhere. Sherbrooke City Council was also concerned to get the funding to subsidize railway construction for the Townships.⁷ In order to develop its raw resources and reach its market, in order to attract newcomers to do the work, railroads - dependable, quick and economically stimulating - had to be rebuilt or improved.

One aspect of this concern for development, of the area's coming of age, was the notion that the principal city of the area, Sherbrooke, needed a proper place for first-class entertainment, either musical or theatrical. The city also needed a proper place for its Registry Office (and its public documents) and an enterprising local lawyer and politician, W.B. Ives, originally contacted city council in February 1881 with a project to build an Opera House.⁸

A local boy whose parents were United Empire Loyalists, Ives was born in Compton in 1841 and educated at Compton Academy. He went into law and practised in Sherbrooke in the decade following Confederation. He entered local politics, was elected a Sherbrooke councillor in 1875 and served on many committees until becoming Mayor. Locally he started the Sherbrooke News and built a railway called the Hereford. He served on the boards of a number of local companies involved in pulp and paper, lime and utilities. Ives moved on to federal politics as an elected Conservative MP for Richmond-Wolfe in 1878, 1882 and 1887 and for the Sherbrooke riding in 1891 and 1896. Not just a back-bencher, he became President of the Privy Council.⁹

Back in 1881, as he was preparing for re-election, Ives developed his Opera House scheme. He wrote city council in February and his letter was duly read, received and filed. It was not until May 1882, however, when the issue of the relocation of the Registry Office became a major municipal issue, that the Ives proposal, now somewhat modified, was taken up again by city council. The creation of a theatre, now referred to as Public Hall, became conveniently interconnected with more normal, mundane municipal matters - providing a suitable and safe place for public documents. Ives said he would finance a building which would house a 1000 to 1200 seat hall and, as well, the much needed Registry Office. The language of the city council motion which supported Ives's plan emphasized not only the inadequacy of the present City Hall for public entertainments but also the potential fire hazard, and so neatly combined appeals to civic pride and to caution and prudence.¹⁰

Theatre was being controlled, then, by just plain civic and common sense. The Ives project was ostensibly a real estate transaction (with some cultural implications) and he cushioned himself from financial repercussions by making city council guarantee placement of the Registry Office in the proposed building (at $800 rental per year) and also pay $3000 for the land needed to widen the street.

Nothing happened. Council met in February 1883 and rescinded part of its 1 May 1882 motion by providing Ives with only $2000 for the necessary land but waiving its right to rent-free access to the Hall.¹¹ In June 1883 they sent a note to Ives via his law partner, H.B. Brown, asking whether or not he intended to proceed with the Opera House and what were the Registry Office plans. Brown replied immediately that Ives was in charge of the project and that it had been abandoned for the present.¹²

What was going on here? Probably Ives had gotten involved with more national issues since being re-elected to Ottawa in February 1882 and there may have been other personal, political or financial reasons for the complete abandonment of the project. What does seem important, however, is the complete lack of experience of everyone involved in a cultural project like this. All knew business, real estate and, presumably, politics, but the theatrical angle - design, booking, producing - were all divorced from their reality. Ives's actions could be best described as political not entrepreneurial, evidence of his political attachment to civic promises in election year 1882, not to cultural reality. The money was soft, the politics expedient and specific theatrical knowledge non-existent.

The next fifteen years saw an increase in the population of the Townships due almost entirely to francophone settlement in the area. Sherbrooke Town Hall and the Art Hall now bore the burden, shared in the summer months with the Rink, of providing a 'suitable' venue for the variety of touring companies now passing through the area with increasing frequency. Along with H. Price Webber, the Lillian Tucker Co., Guy Brothers Minstrels, various Uncle Tom companies, A.Q. Scammon Co., Frost & Fanshawe passed through Sherbrooke, sometimes performing at other towns in the area. But the city still lacked an Opera House. As the Sherbrooke Examiner put it on 13 April 1894:

The need of a decent sized music hall seems to be more and more felt in Sherbrooke and we hope before another year rolls around some enterprising capitalist will set the ball rolling. The prevailing idea is to build a first-class hotel in connection with a nice, well-lighted, well-heated and comfortably seated hall capable of accommodating one thousand people. (p 5, col 3)

The emphasis here was more commercial than cultural: this was a Chamber of Commerce project and some 'capitalist' had to seize the initiative. And the capitalist who did take the initiative in the summer of 1897 was local businessman Charles H Nutter.

In the late eighties he had been a co-owner of the Queen Cigar Factory and then in the nineties of the Wholesale Wines and Liquor Store on King, one of Sherbrooke's main streets.¹³ In June 1897 Nutter, with the help of the local architectural firm Clift and Pope, was preparing plans for the construction of an Opera House. The plan, presented to a special meeting of city council on 4 June, was for Nutter to build a front block for offices and a back block for the Opera House. The building, to be erected on Wellington Street (another main street of Sherbrooke) was to be completed by May 1898. Nutter asked that the Opera House be untaxed for twenty years and that he receive $2500 forgiveness on taxes on the business block in exchange for giving to the city 700 square feet in land needed to widen Wellington Street.¹⁴

This controversial and ambitious proposal was referred to the Finance Committee and on 17 June the Opera House By-Law (174) was introduced at city council. Council was split on the issue. Following certain modifications, the by-law was voted on by polling the real estate owners of Sherbrooke. According to By-Law 174, Nutter had to build an Opera House at a cost of no less than $20,000 with seating capacity of one thousand. He had to make the Opera House available to the city free of charge four times a year for ten years; he was to have no exemption from taxation and, in case of fire, Nutter was totally responsible for rebuilding. Nutter also had to build a modern $25,000-30,000 office building. If Nutter did all this he was to receive $5000. ¹⁵

The by-law passed by a very strong majority.¹⁶ Despite problems with old tenants, letters to the editor in local papers against the Opera House project, and notices of fist fights breaking out between then current and former city councillors, Nutter officially took control of the land from Judge Brooks on 29 July and all seemed ready to go.¹⁷

Not so, however. Nutter got things moving by bringing in Mr. F. Claflin of New York, familiar with the building of Opera Houses; but he could not find tenants for his office block. The joining of commerce and culture, which seemed to have secured an Opera House for Sherbrooke, was coming unstuck. Nutter had to go back to city council asking that he not be forced to build a $45,000 structure. He wanted to build a three-storey office block - not five stories as stipulated -with no elevator. He argued that the Opera House would be better than originally planned and (a little desperately, one surmises) that he would be willing to forego the $5000 cash incentive.¹⁸ The project collapsed politically and financially.

Clearly Nutter got saddled with a completely unrealistic ultimatum for the business block, but the combination structure seemed to be the only way for a local capitalist to conceive of making money on his project. Nutter was not willing to put forward a simple Opera House alone, while city council and public opinion were reluctantly willing to support the entire scheme only if the business/commercial aspect was significant: a More generous subsidy was out of the question. In the summer of 1897 a cold shower of commercial reality, political infighting and municipal conservatism drenched everyone and that was that.

In a more hospitable climate during the 1880s and 1890s a number of Northern New England towns and cities along the major rail lines between Boston and Montreal were doing what Sherbrooke was failing to do: replacing rooms in Town Halls or Music Halls with Opera Houses. Of most interest, from Sherbrooke's point of view, were those built in Portland, Massachusetts and Berlin, New Hampshire. Both towns were directly linked to Sherbrooke by rail and, potentially, road shows coming out of Boston could stop at all three towns on their way to Montreal.

In Portland two theatres were built in the 1890s. Originally a roller-skating rink, the Gem Theater on Peak's Island in Portland harbour was converted to an attractive summer theatre in 1898. It burnt down in 1934. ¹⁹ More important was the incredibly expensive ($150,000) Jefferson Theater. This impressive and well-equipped structure was built in 1897 thanks to a consortium of business and political leaders. The leading road show east of Boston and a home to seasons of stock as well, the Jefferson seated 1600 people. It was torn down in 1933. ²⁰

The debate and discussion on Opera Houses that had occurred in Sherbrooke also took place in Berlin.²¹ In the United States, however, the debate resulted in two business blocks with Opera Houses being built before 1895 to replace the small halls (c. 300 capacity) that had previously served the area. The Whitney Opera House (1888) and then the more prestigious Clement Opera House (late 1894) were constructed with the support of the local community.²² These ventures were commercially and culturally sound -the risk was minimal. But someone still had to take whatever risk there was and in Berlin (and later in Sherbrooke) that person was F.M. Clement, a local entrepreneur and politician.

Born in Deering, New Hampshire in 1852, Fred-Mayo Clement was educated in Massachusetts and Maryland and was involved in a variety of business activities. He worked in a steamboat business in the South and as a photographer for the government. In Berlin he owned a photographic studio and built the Clement Opera Block. He was involved in state and local politics as a Democrat from the late 1880s. He was on city council in 1898-99 and became Mayor in 1901-02; in between he was finally elected to the New Hampshire State Legislature in late 1900. He moved on to other adventures - oil and gas prospecting in Kansas, and then involvement in the early motion picture industry - and died in Los Angeles in 1923. ²³

Back in Sherbrooke they were waiting for someone like Clement. The local daily, the Sherbrooke Daily Record, stepped up its complaints about the inadequate Town Hall and Rink Opera House and reprinted an article from an American paper, just across the border in Colebrook, New Hampshire, that devastatingly and patronizingly treated Sherbrooke as the poor relation:

It was an old cast off skating rink, colder than any barn in this country, with some little windows way up on the roof, with no finish whatever inside. There was a railing around the main floor, and outside of that where the floor projects out for the spectators who went to see the skaters, there were what we supposed to be the private boxes, for there were all sorts and sizes of old dry goods boxes, tin pails, saw horses, tables and watering pots, and all arranged very neatly against the wall.... and the gallery was a dandy, there seemed to be a double one, the first one you could get at all right but the second one seemed to be hung up by four sticks hanging from the rafters, how they got to it we do not know. The most attractive part of the hall, was the drop curtain, you should have seen it! We will try to describe it. In the centre there was a painting of about 4 by 6 feet in size, well it was done with paint, around it in all sorts and sizes of letters there were dozens of different advertisements ... (21 Sept 1898, p 2, col 4)

The paper kept up the attack:

If there is one thing Sherbrooke people are ashamed of it is the accommodation for theatrical troupes and their audiences that this city provides. (8 Sept 1899, p 1, col 2)

Large stoves have been erected in the building, so that the audience will not find the atmosphere here uncomfortable. (4 Oct 1899, p 1, col 5)

A problem: If 600 people will turn out on a rainy night to witness a theatrical performance at the Skating Rink with its leaky roof and damp floor from which the ice has but barely gone, what patronage would a first-class opera house receive in Sherbrooke? (9 May 1900, p 1 col 5)

Clement had money and entrepreneurial skills, like Nutter and Ives before him. He had political experience and savvy, like Ives. He had theatrical experience and expertise, unlike Nutter or Ives, and came to see Sherbrooke as a market to be exploited. He clearly envisioned operating a chain of theatres from Portland to Montreal, linked by rail and under his managerial control. It was good old-fashioned free trade! And in May 1900, just as the Rink was re-opening for its summer season, Clement contacted the Sherbrooke Board of Trade and things moved swiftly.

Following a meeting with Clement, the Board recommended to the Finance Committee of city council that the city secure a site for an Opera House at a cost not exceeding $6000. The Finance Committee met with Clement and three possible sites were discussed. They recommended to council on May 25 that the city buy a lot owned by Quebec Central Railway Company and sell seventy feet frontage to Clement at a nominal price ($10). In return for remittance of tax for ten years, Clement was to build a $20,000 Opera House satisfactory to the council; failure to build the theatre would make the deed of land null and void. This time the deal was unanimously approved by council, with excavation for the foundation to begin as soon as possible.²⁴

Yet the final legal documents were not signed until 12 April 1901; first legal complications (differences in American and Canadian law) and then Clement's increasing political activity as state legislator and Mayor of Berlin had delayed and indeed threatened the project.²⁵ During the delay, rumours of failure circulated and the Sherbrooke Examiner got behind the notion that a combination City Hall and Opera House would be a preferable project.²⁶ In the end the original deal was ratified since it clearly met the needs and requirements of both parties. Sherbrooke wanted an Opera House and Clement was the only person willing to risk $20,000 (certainly no producer, theatre manager or business consortium from Montreal had ever ventured into the Townships) and Clement did not have to worry about land or taxes (unlike Nutter before him) -just build and run a theatre, at which he had no little experience.

To build the Clement Opera House, as it was first called, Clement used a Berlin contractor and architect and brought in as designer C.A. Hanson, who had worked on both Portland theatres, the Jefferson and Gem.²⁷ Clement moved quickly to have the theatre open for the Sherbrooke Fair in September (a pretty good guarantee for big houses) and booked in the regular exhibition fare of vaudeville. He followed up with the popular and familiar Guy Minstrels and A.Q. Scammon Co. What was deemed the official opening, however, was the 27 and 28 September performances of Faust with Lewis Morrison reviving his Mephisto (twenty years on the boards) in a 'new' version of the play. At this opening the drop curtain and scenic effects were praised, Mr Morrison took bows before the curtain, and the crowded hall - few vacant seats - was commented upon.²⁸ This was the real thing - sort of.

Now that 'it' was finally here what was it: a nice place to see a popularly priced show or a theatre that would serve more ambitious productions of different types of play? Was it going to have only a commercial impact or was it also to have some cultural impact? The Faust production was clearly designed as a test case for future attractions of special plays or shows and, in raising prices to $1.50, $1.00 and $.50, Clement was seeing whether or not the Sherbrooke market was willing to pay for such ambitious productions or serious drama.

They were not. Just as in 1854 when the very new Uncle Tom's Cabin was going to pay a visit to Sherbrooke, provided enough tickets were sold in advance, so high-class comic opera from Boston would come in Spring 1902 only if there were enough advance sales.²⁹ Moreover, Clement was able to book Rose Coghlan for her one appearance in Canada with Pinero's The Second Mrs. Tanqueray in November 1902 only because he guaranteed payment for her appearances in Berlin and Sherbrooke.³⁰

The first performance of Shakespeare in Sherbrooke (Macbeth with John Griffith) later that month prompted a long and interesting article in the Sherbrooke Daily Record of 2 December 1902, concerning the impact of the Opera House on local tastes and vice versa.³¹ Comedy, farce comedy, comic opera, band concerts, melodrama and drama of various grades had been booked into the Opera House - that is, everything available except the top-of-the-line stars and burlesque. The latter had been booked back in December 1901, but Clement had the show cancelled when, as he put it, he realized what the Zero Theatrical Company performed.³² In the December article the writer indicated that farce comedy seemed most popular, as both the masses and the classes patronized such shows. Band concerts went over well, as did well-known spectaculars. Comic opera, melodrama and regular drama were far less popular.

The Opera House did provide more entertainment than ever before but simply presented Sherbrooke audiences with their traditionally favourite fare - the ever popular farce comedy, for example. The new component in the programming, the serious and expensive regular drama, predictably enough was erratically received. In the end the cheap or reasonably priced shows (top price $.50 or $.75) completely dominated the repertoire.

In early 1903 Clement, who was suffering from ill health, sold out his Berlin and Sherbrooke Opera Houses to another mayor-entrepreneur of another Northern New England town, James E. Tolman of Gloucester, Massachusetts. Tolman, who took a one-year lease with option to purchase on the Clement, was already running a theatre in Gloucester. He too was interested in establishing a theatre chain.³³ In the event he did not pick up the purchase option, preferring to concentrate on building a new theatre in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Clement took over his theatre again, brinfing more of a mix of vaudeville and moving pictures to the programming.³⁴ He finally sold out in March 1911 when the ten-year remittance on taxes ran out. This time a local syndicate bought the theatre. The price was $30,000 and they brought in Lon Cathro of Montreal, who had been the manager of a hat store, to run it.³⁵ The theatre was renamed His Majesty's,³⁶ and the emerging, soon to be dominant, moving picture culture now controlled programming, even significantly affecting the stock company plays whose top admission price was now a mere $30. During 1914 theatre productions eventually disappeared from the stage: a touring production of Peg o' My Heart, appearing for one night only - Tuesday, 14 March - , appears to be the last regularly scheduled show.³⁷

The mixed grill fare of the nineties and the early Opera House forays into serious drama were now completely replaced by popular, mass entertainment geared to the young ($.05 admission) and the male (vaudeville). As well the repertoire of music, silent movies, and very basic plays bridged the language barrier and could attract the ever increasing francophone population of the area. Aspirations or pretensions to serious drama, to Culture with a capital 'C', never significant in Sherbrooke but nevertheless a factor in the cultural mix, had become, in terms of the Opera House, commercially irrelevant. As the local syndicate seems to have recognized, the Opera House's status and function were unambiguous now: real estate - commercially viable or unviable. And that, no doubt, is why the building and not the theatre still stands today at the end of the century as a business and residential block.
 

Notes

BUILDING A THEATRE: SHERBROOKE AND ITS OPERA HOUSE*

Jonathan Rittenhouse

a I would like to thank Bishop's University and its Research Committee for providing funds for research on this article. In particular they subsidized my research assistant, Ms. Linda Gintowt, who had the slave's task of looking at newspapers on microfilm and photocopying important articles. This article is indebted to her diligent research; the errors and simplifications of the article are, of course, my own responsibility. I would also like to thank Mr. Philip Glasson who helped me in my research in Berlin, New Hampshire, and the New Hampshire State Library and New Hampshire Historical Society for information on F.M. Clement. Thanks also to the librarians at Bishop's University.
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1 This article is primarily based on research in the Sherbrooke Daily Record from inception in 1897 to 1911; the Minute Books of the City of Sherbrooke; and the printed matter and archival holdings in the local historical societies of Sherbrooke, Lennoxville, Knowlton, Richmond, Stanbridge East, Stanstead and Eaton. The extensive Eastern Townships Research Collection at Bishop's University has also been used
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2 LOUISE CAROLINE PIGOT's unpublished thesis, 'The Geographical Aspects of Population Change in Five Counties of Quebec's Eastern Townships' (Bishop's University, 1975) is a very helpful synthesis of census data and published historical statistics concerning the Townships. See in particular Tables XVI (p 53), XX (p 69), XXII (p 73), XXV (p 81), XXXI and XXXII (p 95)
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3 See his Marxism and Literature (Oxford University Press 1977, p 121-27), where he discusses the complex structure of culture (its meanings, values and practices) and demonstrates how residual, dominant and emergent meanings, values and practices compete and co-exist in a continual and dynamic process
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4 Minute Book, City of Sherbrooke, vol 88 p 174, 269-70
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5 Ibid, p 139, 218, 225
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6 Ibid, p 339
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7 Ibid, p 508-09
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8 Ibid, vol 90 p 39
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9 REV. WM COCHRANE, D.D. (ed.), The Canadian Album Men of Canada (Brantford, Ont., 1893) vol 11 p 474; Minute Book, City of Sherbrooke, vol 88 p 408, 522; Eastern Townships Gazeteer and Directory, 1875-76
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10 Sherbrooke Examiner, 10 Feb 1882, p 3 col 2; 17 Mar 1882, p 3 col 2; 5 May 1882, p 3 col 2; also Minute Book, City of Sherbrooke, vol 90 p 243-44
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11 Minute Book, City of Sherbrooke, vol 90 p 370-71
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12 Ibid, p 437, 440-41
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13 Eastern Townships Business and Farmers Directory, 1888-89 and 1892
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14 Minute Book. City of Sherbrooke vol 93 p 520, 523; Sherbrooke Daily Record, 5 June 1897, p 2 col 2
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15 Minute Book, City of Sherbrooke, vol 93 p 532; Sherbrooke Daily Record, 18 June 1897, p 2 col 2; 7 July 1897, p 2 col 2 and p 2 col 3; 9 July 1897, p 2 col 2
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16 The vote was 135 for and 71 against; those in favour held property worth$754,758 as against $230,500 held by those against
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17 Sherbrooke Daily Record, 15 July 1897, p 2 col 2; 17 July 1897, p 2 col 3; 21 July 1897, p 3 col 4; 24 July 1897, p 2 col 3; 27 July 1897, p 1 col 1; 19 July 1897, p 2 col 2
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18 Minute Book, City of Sherbrooke, vol 93 p 557; Sherbrooke Daily Record, 11 Aug 1897, p 2 col 2; 12 Aug 1897, p 3 col 3
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19 KATHERINE WALLACE STEWART, Peaks Island - As It Was (Portland, Mass 1962) p 3-4
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20 HAROLD L CALL, 'Famous American Theaters,' Theatre Arts 40 (Sept 1956), p 69
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21 The 11 April 1888 issue of The Berlin Independent, p 2 col 2 called for businessmen to erect a business block with Opera House included
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22 BAILEY K DAVIS, Traditions and Recollections of Berlin N.H. (Berlin, N.H. [1897]) p 102; The Bethel News, 17 Feb 1897, p 1 col 2
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23 A Souvenir of New Hampshire Legislators (Concord, N.H., 1901), vol III p 130-31; PERCIVAL WOOD CLEMENT, Ancestors and Descendants of Robert Clements (1927), vol 11 p 801-02; Annual Report, City of Berlin (Berlin, N.H., 1900 and 1902); Sherbrooke Daily Record, 2 June 1905, p 5 col 5; 11 Sept 1923, p 4 col 1 and 2
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24 Minute Book, City of Sherbrooke, vol 94 p 230, 234-35; Sherbrooke Daily Record, 14 May 1900, p 1 col 5
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25 Sherbrooke Daily Record, 14 Nov 1900, p 1 col 3
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26 Ibid, 11 Aug 1900, p 4 col 4; 18 Jan 1901, p 1 col 3
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27 Ibid, 21 May 1901, p 1 col 3
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28 Ibid, 24 Sept 1901, p 4 col 3; 28 Sept 1901, p 1 col 6 and 7
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29 Ibid, 28 Mar 1902, p 1 col 1 and 2
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30 Ibid, 3 Nov 1902, p 4 col 3
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31 Ibid, 1 Dec 1902, p 1 col 6 and 7
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32 Ibid, 19 Dec 1901, p 1 col 5
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33 Ibid, 16 Feb 1903, p 1 col 4 and 5
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34 Ibid, 15 Feb 1904, p 4 col 4
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35 Ibid, 23 Mar 1911, p 1 col 5; 3 May 1911, p 7 col 5; Lovell's Montreal Directory (1907-08, 1910)
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36 Sherbrooke Daily Record, 25 May 1911, p 1 col 5. A contest was held to change the name
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37 Ibid, 14 Mar 1914, p 5 col 1 and 2
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