The Colby-Curtis Museum will forever be an integral part of the history of the Stanstead area.
Started in 1929 by the Stanstead Historical Society, its main purpose was to collect and preserve historical documents and items relative to the area. It wasn’t until 1973 when Charles C. Colby and Arthur Curtis, two well-known and influential people living in the area, provided the funding for the creation of the first actual museum, where historical documents, books and items could be gathered and stored in one location. The museum would then inhabit many buildings such as an old schoolhouse in Beebe and the old RCMP building, before the Colby family donated their ancestral home to the museum in 1992.
Last week, it was announced that the Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network (QAHN) would be donating funds to five museums in the Townships, with one of those selected being the Colby-Curtis Museum. The Record spoke with Samuel Gaudreau-Lalande, director and curator of the museum, about the significance of the new funding. “While big museums can afford to have the large budgets to both attract customers and remodel, our museum is much smaller in comparison, so we don’t have the leeway to do any big events or remodeling,” Gaudreau-Lalande said. “The grant from the QAHN is giving us the chance to remodel our old boutique and turn it into an education center,” he explained, where children can come and participate in museum activities.
