Appendix A - the Gatineau Valley Historical Society

Summary
This tale has carried the reader from the days when this planet was formed,
through the days when homo sapiens erectus lifted himself on to his two
back legs and his frorit limbs ever so slowly developed into arms and hands.
From these beginnings came modern man, known as homo sapiens sapiens.
. On the North American Continent the first inhabitants were the Inuits and
those others who were given the name Indians.
Quickly the story passed through the "explorer era" of Champlain and
others, touching on Nicolas Gatineau who gave his name to the river and the
bordering countryside, to the focus of our concern, the two Chelseas. The
division between two,if division there was, was probably brought about by
the two religions practiced by the early inhabitants, Protestantism and .
Catholicism.
Old Chelsea itself was initially Protestant but became Roman Catholkwith
the advent of a great number of Irish Catholics in the mid 1800's. The
Protestant adherents tended to gravitate towards the Gatineau River where
they established their homes, their churches and school. In so doing there was
no intent to separate from the older portion of their community. Indeed there
was no desire to drop the original name of the village.
It is the custom in towns and cities to describe an area as the east end, west
end, etc. Sometimes a region is given a specific name such as Ottawa's "Sandy
Hill" or "Britannia", and Hull's "Wrightville", This did not happen quite this
179