The Massawippi Valley Railway

The Massawippi Valley Railway, linking Newport, Vermont and Lennoxville, Quebec, was opened on July 1st 1870. In addition to carrying forest and agricultural products to market, the railway was instrumental in the development of the copper mining and granite quarrying industries in the region. The railway also provided a link for passengers travelling between the United States and Canada and stimulated summer recreation on Lake Massawippi.
From 1870 to 1919 the railway was operated by the Connecticut & Passumpsic Rivers Railroad. In 1919, the railway was leased by the Boston & Maine Railroad and in 1926 it came under the control of the Quebec Central Railway.
The line was abandoned by the Canadian Pacific Railway, parent company of the Quebec Central, in 1990. The portion of the railway right-of-way from Ayer’s Cliff to Beebe was converted into the Tomifobia Nature Trail by Sentiers Massawippi in 1993.

An Accident
At 10:30 p.m. on April 8th 1895, the southbound Boston & Maine Railroad passenger train from Sherbrooke to Newport, pulled by locomotive No. 427, struck a large boulder that had fallen onto the tracks sometime after the northbound train had passed earlier in the day. Both the engineer, Felix J. Rooney, and the fireman, Louis A. Emerson, were trapped in the cab after the locomotive was derailed and the tender fell on top of it. They were freed by passengers (none of whom was hurt) but they had been badly scalded by escaping steam. They were taken to Newport where they both died in the early hours of April 9th.
A memorial stone provided by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, along with the original boulder that caused the accident, remain at the site, located at km 13.4 of the Tomifobia Nature Trail.

Although its meaning is unknown, the origin of the word "Tomifobia" is likely Algonquin, the language spoken by the Abenaki tribes that seasonally travelled on the lake and river systems of the Eastern Townships prior to European settlement. An important link between the Connecticut and Saint Lawrence basins, the Tomifobia River is one of the most southern rivers to flow northward and eventually drain into the Saint Lawrence (via the Saint Francis).

The Abenaki allied themselves with France during the French and Indian Wars and the Tomifobia valley remained part of New France until the 1763 Treaty of Paris, which granted the region to the English. Cited on maps as the "Barlow River"prior to 1900, the Tomifobia River valley was settled by United Empire Loyalists in the late 18th-century soon after the Constitutional Act of1791 opened the land of what was then Lower Canada. Significant communities developed around a series of mills that were built on the river in the early part of the 19th-century , leading to the establishment of Boynton, Tomifobia [formerly Smith's Mills], and Stanstead Plain [Kilborn's Mills]. Each of these villages would soon become stops along an important stagecoach and later railroad route between Boston and Montreal (the Massawippi Valley Railroad became part of the Boston and Maine Railroad network in 1867).

Today the Tomifobia River runs through an area that is mostly
provincially protected Green Zone within the counties of Canton de
Stanstead, Stanstead-est, and Ogden. This has helped protect the river from heavy waterfront housing growth (except near Lake Massawippi in Ayer's Cliff), characteristic of a number of other bodies of water in the area. While a study by Roberge & Roy (2004) suggests there is little continuously suspended sediment in the river, there are some concerns about the expansion of the Tomifobia delta at the mouth of Lake Massawippi. Research indicates that this delta has been built through sporadic hydrological events rather than through agricultural catchment. Nevertheless, agricultural practices have undoubtedly contributed to the high levels of phosphates detected in lower portions of the river following periods of heavy rainfall.