Lysander falls
The Lysander falls, located on the banks of the Bécancour River, were named in honour of general Lysander Flagg from Central Falls, Rhode Island. Along with his partners, he embarked on an ambitious project, taking part in the construction of a dam, sawmill and flour and teasel mills around 1860.
Pleasant Bluff Town
At the beginning of the 20th century, an important village called Pleasant Bluff began to flourish near Lysander Falls on Gosford road north, on the border of the Inverness Township. It appeared that this village might surpass the village of Inverness in importance some day.
In 1882, the two banks harbouring the dam were registered and parcelled for the construction of houses. Ten years later, the population reached fifty inhabitants. By 1900, the village counted many homes, two ironworks factories, a post office, an Anglican school, a Methodist church, a cheese and dairy shop, a general store and a three-storey hotel.
If General Lysander and his associates had had the support of provincial authorities and railway companies, and if arrangements had been made to sell the manufactured products, it is a common belief that a “little Sherbrooke” would have arisen.
Perhaps the most ambitious mill effort of the county was the erection of the Lysander Falls plant. The dam there constructed was an engineering triumph, and if General Lysander Flagg, Mr. Wolcott, and associates had been supported by the provincial authorities and railroad companies, and an outlet afforded for manufactured products, a little Sherbrooke would have arisen, and the large saw-mill, sash and blind factory, then erected would have been taxed to the utmost to furnish material for the houses and hotels which would have sprung up on the town site there laid out; the duly labelled avenues are now, alas! Largely devoted to weeds and buckwheat. The waters rush over the rocks in the chasm below, and many bright hopes have been wrecked in the whirlpool of life (Dugald McKenzie McKillop, Annals of Megantic County, 1902, p. 101-102).
The repurchase of the land near the Bécancour River by Shawinigan Water and Power put an end to the development project and little by little, the village disappeared. The mills were demolished and in 1919, the general store closed its doors. By 1927, only thirty people or so still lived in Pleasant Bluff.
Dams and Mills located at Lysander Falls (Collection Sylvia Dacres Champagne).
The Methodist church (1901-1955) at Lysander Falls (Collection Sylvia Dacres Champagne).
