By Taylor McClure, Special to the Brome County News – The Brome County News recently came across this photograph (right) from the archives of downtown Knowlton. The first settlers made their way to the Knowlton area from New England at the beginning of the nineteenth-century. Matthew Morehouse, from Massachusetts, and John Capel, from Vermont, were the first two settlers to arrive in the early 1800s. While Morehouse did not stay in Knowlton very long, Capel decided to build a home in the area. In 1834, a man by the name of Paul Holland Knowlton would settle in the area permanently with his wife Laura Moss. He already had a home in Brome Lake for nearly 20 years, having immigrated to the region in 1815, and he knew the town very well. Paul was a businessman and he started to establish the town at full speed. Upon his arrival, he purchased water rights and then quickly built a sawmill so that he had access to building materials. Once he produced the materials, he started to build a large home with various other buildings on the property such as a blacksmith shop, a flour mill, potash factory, and a general store. This became the center of the town of Knowlton. See full story in the June 11 edition of the Brome County News.
