Donnacona Paper Company

Donnacona Paper Company Housing and Plant

The early developers of Donnacona were George Allsopp, the Sewells family and John Foreman. They formed the Donnacona Paper Co. with a group of Americans to acquire and develop the timber resources and water power in the Jacques Cartier River region. Donnacona Paper Co. built its paper plant and staff houses on high land overlooking the St. Lawrence River.

In the beginning of the 20th Century, the company built a new town, and provided modern electric lightning, water-works and a sewage system for the houses in the town. In fact, the town was developed after Lomer Gouin’s government of Quebec had prohibited the export of pulp to keep manufacturing jobs in Quebec.

Thus investors were motivated to build paper plants such as Donnacona. The company installed modern machinery in 1916. About 600 people worked here. The total output of the paper produced here was consumed by one newspaper: New York Times.

It took the pulp of one good sized-tree to produce one copy of 96 pages of the New York Sunday Times (Save the forest, don’t read! Well, it’s just a joke). There was an old village on the site, known as Jacques-Cartier Village during the French Regime.

A Catholic Church was built during the late years of New France, just before the Seven Years’ War started. A Fort Cartier, the last French fortress in Canada, was built in the beginning of the war.

After the defeat in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, the French withdrew there. The Fort was the last remaining French stronghold in North America taken by the British.