1

Where It All Began
1817
Stanstead, Québec

2

A one-room wooden school house, known as the Mansur School, is claimed to be the predecessor of Stanstead Academy that evolved into Stanstead Wesleyan College and eventually Stanstead College. It was built in 1817 and local children received basic schooling here over the next 19 years. It was then replaced by a brick school house that still exists. It is the birth place of the Stanstead Historical Society in 1929.

3

Stanstead Seminary
1840
Stanstead, Québec

4

"The first Colby ancestor came from England in the 1630's and settled in Amesbury, Massachusetts. In 1832, Moses French Colby brought his family to Stanstead from Derby, Vermont, becoming a Canadian citizen and serving as local representative to the parliament of Canada East. His son, the Hon. Charles Carroll Colby, attended Stanstead Seminary."
The Stanstead College Story by Joan MacDonald.

5

Graduating from Dartmouth College
1847
Stanstead, Québec

6

Charles Carroll. Colby was born in 1827 in Derby, Vermont, the eldest child of Dr. Moses French Colby and Lemira Strong. The family moved to Stanstead, Quebec in 1832 and he attended school there. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1847, then studied law with H. Bailey Terrill, Stanstead, A. and G. Robertson, Montreal and the Hon. J. S. Sanborn, Sherbrooke.

7

Christmas 1903
1858
Stanstead, Québec

8

Harriet Hannah Child was born 23 April, 1838 on a farm in Weybridge Vermont, the daughter of John Child and Abigail Wright. Her mother died when she was five years old and she was mainly brought up by her stepmother, with whom she had a good relationship. After schooling in the local village school she was sent as a boarder to the Fort Edward Institute in up-state New York, moving from there to the Fort Plains Institute, near Albany, most probably a Normal School. Judging from the documents kept from this period, poetry, essays, graduation programmes, concert notices and such, these were fulfilling years for Harriet.
In September 1857 she was hired as a teacher at the seminary in Stanstead, forerunner of Stanstead College. There she met the young lawyer Charles Carroll Colby: they were married in December of the following year.

9

A concern for education
1867
Stanstead, Québec

10

"[Charles Carroll Colby] was one of the founders of Stanstead College, a member of the Board of Trustees, and chairman of the executive committee for Stanstead Seminary."
The Stanstead College Story by Joan MacDonald

11

Stanstead College is Born
1872
Stanstead, Québec

12

The Cornerstone of the ‘new' Stanstead Wesleyan College was laid on December 5th, 1872, marking a significant change in education in the Eastern Townships. Charles Carroll Colby
was a Director.

13

Abby Lemira Colby
1879
Stanstead, Québec

14

In 1877, to improve her health, Harriet with her daughter Abby, a recent graduate of Stanstead Wesleyan College, (photo above) spent several months in Colorado where her brother was a rancher. Letters home were long and full of detail.