The Twentieth Century.
1904: The parish of St-Francois-Xavier at Pointe Fortune is founded.
1906: Beginnings of the "ice industry" in Hudson. The first ice house, founded by Joe Wilson, is located immediately west of the Yacht Club. Joe Wilson sells this ice harvesting company to Napoleon Masson (who named his new acquisition the Crystal Ice Co.) at some point during the second decade of the Twentieth Century. Masson, in turn, sells it to City Ice Co. in 1922. This ice house was later known locally as Meldrum's. It legal name was "City Ice Co." The last owner of this company was Napoleon Masson, who owned the land on which the Meldrum Ice House was located until the mid 1950s.
1909: The construction of a Catholic school on St. Jean street, behind the mission church, takes place. This school will function as a school till the spring of 1952.
1914-18: War.
1918-19: The Spanish Flu hits the area. A number of people catch the illness, and a few succumb to it. Twin Lauzon sisters in the Fief Choisy die within hours of one another, and Ms. Laurin, the telephone switchboard operator for the village, also succumbs of the illness.
1920: "Hudson High School," on Cote St. Charles road, begins operation with three teachers and 72 students.
1922: The renovation of St. Thomas Aquinas mission chapel to meet the needs of the intended parish begins.
1922: The Meldrums buy the Crystal Ice Co. from Napoleon Masson and rename the business City Ice Co.
1923: A one-room Catholic school is constructed in Como-East. It opens its door on October 22nd.
1925: The Mission of St. Thomas Aquinas is elevated to the rank of parish by the bishop at Valleyfield.
1925: The Dominican nuns move into the newly formed parish and are given the responsibility of teaching in the school.
1934: A major fire at the Wilson Ice House destroys some of the sheds. These sheds are not rebuilt after the fire, and it leads to the scaling down of the operation for the remainder of the existence of the company.
1939-45: War.
1944-1945: The City Ice company (Meldrum's) ceases to operate.
1946: The Catholic school in Como-East is burned to the ground on May 4th., and is rebuilt by December 1946.
1947: August - In connection with the fiftieth anniversary of St. Thomas Aquinas, Robert-Lionel Seguin publishes a monograph on the history of the church in the area, as well as a history of the area generally.
1950: Discussion gets underway to construct a modern school for English- and French-speaking Catholics. Land is purchased for the construction of the school from the Estate of the late Joseph Blenkinship on the Main Road, east of the church.
1951: Construction of the new St. Thomas Aquinas School gets underway in the summer. The school will house a convent for the Sisters of Ste-Anne, a teaching order of nuns that has been in the area since 1948, eight classrooms, a gym, and offices. A second floor will be added c. 1955, contained an additional eight classrooms.
1952: The opening of St. Thomas Aquinas Elementary School on the Main Road in Hudson in September. Prior to this, English and French-speaking Catholics attended classes in the "old school," which was located behind the Church on St. Jean street. Today this building is an apartment house.
1952: Influenced by the Robert Lionel Seguin's monograph on St. Thomas Aquinas, which was published in 1947, Rev. C. Royle (rector of the Anglican parish of St. James) produces a preliminary version (mimeographed) of the history of St. James parish. This version, which is difficult to come by today, will be expanded with time and will become a sizable work by 1955, at which point a "definitive" version will be published in a private printing.
1955: Robert-Lionel Seguin publishes a history of the rebellion of 1837-38 in the county of Vaudreuil. The work is entitled Le Mouvement Insurrectionnel dans la Presqu'ile de Vaudreuil 1837-38, and the publisher is Librairie Ducharme Limité. (This work is a collector's item today.)
1959-1960: The last year in which the Wilson Company harvests ice on the Lake of Two Mountains.
1961: The Wilson Company ice house is demolished following a fire.
1963: The founding of the Hudson Historical Society.
October 1963: The founding of the Hudson Historical Society towards the end of October takes place at a meeting held on a Saturday morning in late October, in the living-room of Armour and Ruth Sampson's home. The Sampson's were then living in a house not far from Hudson Height train station. In attendance at the meeting, in alphabetical order, were: Maben W. Poirier, Rev. Cecil Royle, Amour and Ruth Sampson, John Thompson. Maben Poirier does recalls that Betty Kennedy did not attend this first meeting (although she was aware of its taking place). Betty was at the second meeting, which took place a week later in her home on either Brisbane or Birchill Avenues. Prior to this first meeting, Maben W. Poirier and John Thompson had discussed the idea of forming a historical society in the area while travelling back and forth on the train to attend university in Montreal. Maben W. Poirier recalls that John Thompson mentioned that he and Rev. Royle had toyed with the idea of creating a historical society in the area earlier on in the year, but nothing had come of it.
c. 1965: The Sandy Beach, property of the Blenkinship family, ceases to operate as a public beach, and eventually becomes inactive. It is difficult to say exactly when the beach ceased operation for it took place over a two to three year period, during which time the Blenkinships made up their minds about the future of the resort area. It is also difficult to be specific about when the beach began operations. The best guess is that it began functioning as a public beach charging an entrance fee some time around 1900, or perhaps a little earlier. Mrs. Joseph Blenkinship (Alicia [Alice] Gray) was well remembered locally in the 1950s for her assiduousness when it was a matter of collecting entrance fees at "the gate."
1969: July - The fusion of the villages of Como, Hudson and Hudson Heights takes place, and the resulting municipality is known as the "Town of Hudson."
1967: John Thompson's M.A. thesis is published by the Hudson Historical Society. The title of the work is Hudson: The Early Years, up to 1867. This work will go through a number of editions. The focus of the thesis is on the years between 1820, when the Cumberland settlers arrived in the area, and 1867. (A history of the area that convers the period from 1702 on to the present has yet to be written.)
1982: December - An ice storm in mid December knocks out electric power for approximately a week in the Hudson area.
1996: The fusion of the towns of Dorion and Vaudreuil takes place on March 16th.
1998: A major "ice storm" hits southern Quebec in early January (January 6th), and knocks electric power out for three weeks, and even longer in certain localities.