In the early 1990s an uncle in England contacted Hudson resident Martin Hofton about an obscure link in their family’s history. Did Martin know anything about John and Sarah Jones and their sons John and Arthur?
The Siberian Expeditionary Force: A (Nearly) Forgotten Episode of WWI Long-time residents of Hudson remember Frank Wilson. Born in 1890, the youngest of James and Carolyn Wilson of Cote St. Charles' nine children, Frank was one of the large contingent of local men who answered the call to defend King and Empire in the Great War. He survived, returned to the Cote, but soon left for Ottawa where he learned the trade of carpentry. Two decades of work in Detroit followed.
Topics: Events | Hudson | People | Wars | World War I
In the Foreword to Joseph Graham’s Naming the Laurentians Graeme Decarie recalls that when he was teaching in China his students asked him where in Canada he lived. He replied, “UpNorth”. “They were profoundly impressed and wanted to see a picture of my igloo. I had forgotten that UpNorth is a place that exists only in the vocabulary of Montrealers.”
A few years ago Ralph Simpson made an important discovery in his barn: three collections of photograph negatives. The photographer was his father Lem, who as a young man had taken up photography as a hobby.
As a teenager and young adult Lem (born in 1903) often brought his camera along with him to record the people, places and events of his community - the Cote St. Charles Settlement.
The book describes the various inns, boarding houses and B & B's of Hudson from 1792 to the present. Old photos of the buildings, people and stories and anecdotes are throughout the 110 page book.
Topics: Hudson | Industries | Society Book
a) The Ottawa River Navigation Company
b) The History of the Hudson Water Works System
c) Hudson's Finest - The Hudson Police Department
d) The Hodgson Brother's Sawmill
e) The Hudson Hosiery
Topics: Hudson | Industries | Society Book
Submitted by webmaster on Wed, 2006-04-26 18:01.As children we have all knocked four nails into the top of a cotton bobbin and by continuously hooking woollen yarn over the nails have produced a circular woollen "rope".
In a typical circular knitting machine for making socks, the four nails are replaced by about 250 needles and hooks, and up to as many as 400 in a machine for making nylon stockings. Although many types of machine were used by Hudson Hosiery including Banner and Komet, the photo shows a typical basic circular sock knitting machine. (This particular machine by Scott and Williams was built around 1915 and was still in operation in the Richelieu Hosiery Plant in Cornwall when it closed in 2000).
Started by a group of local entrepreneurs just before World War II, The Hudson Hosiery Co. Ltd. was for many years the only full time industry in the Town (the ice harvesting operations on the Lake of Two Mountains being seasonal) until it was destroyed by fire in March 1965. During its peak years, the "Hosiery" employed some 100 or so local residents.
In a late 2004 meeting of the Hudson Historical Society, the President, Mr.Kevin O'Donnell commented that very little information on the Hosiery Company existed in the Society's archives, and that it would be useful to record its history while there were still people around who remembered it and worked there. I volunteered to do this, and during the summer of 2005, spent many interesting hours poring through back issues of the Lake of Two Mountains Gazette (which paints a fascinating picture of the development of Hudson over the last 50 years), the Canadian Textile Journal with its many illustrations of changing clothing fashions and talking to ex-employees, all of whom seem to have fond memories of that little company.
This, then, is the story of the Hudson Hosiery Co. Ltd.
