Matthew Farfan

The son of an English father and a French Canadian mother, William S. Hunter was born in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu (St. John's), Quebec in 1823. Hunter lived for many years in Stanstead, where his wife Nancy Parsons was born. He held a number of occupations in his life, including mining broker and boot, shoe, and harness maker, but it was his talent as an artist/author that won him lasting fame.

Hunter produced a number of drawings of the Eastern Townships. He included some of them in a guidebook titled Hunter's Eastern Townships Scenery, Canada East, which he published in Montreal in 1860. Written for "the tourist and the man of business," Hunter's book contained general and statistical information on the Eastern Townships, and a portfolio of thirteen prints (left), each with its own accompanying vignettes (right).

Left: "The Pinnacle Looking North from the Little Lake, Barnston," by W. S. Hunter. (Source: Hunter's Eastern Townships Scenery, 1860)

Featured were depictions of Baldwin's Pond, Lake Massawippi, the Massawippi River (and Bishop's College), Lake Memphremagog, Stanstead, the St. Francis River near Richmond and Sherbrooke, and the Coaticook River Gorge. Although influenced by the work of William Henry Bartlett, whom he alludes to in his preface, unlike Bartlett, Hunter makes "no attempt at exaggeration."

Later in life, Hunter moved to Belleville, Ontario where he continued to work as an artist. He died in 1894, and is buried in Stanstead.

To view the 13 engravings from Eastern Townships Scenery (1860),
click here.

To view some of the vignettes from Eastern Townships Scenery (1860),
click here.