Huntingdon, Canada

Huntingdon is a small town in Huntingdon County in the Montérégie region of the province of Quebec, Canada. As at December 31, 2004, the town had an approximate population of 2,600. Located 75 kilometers (46 miles) southwest of Montreal, and only a few miles from the border with New York State, the town was first settled by British soldiers after the War of 1812. The fertile land in the area led to a successful farming economy but once the fear of attack from the Americans was gone, in the 1820s businessmen established lumber and grist mills on the banks of the Châteauguay River.

During the first few decades of the 20th century, when transport from major urban centers to the outlying rural areas became economically feasible, the textile industry began expanding at a rapid rate in various towns throughout the province of Quebec. By the1930s, Huntingdon was home to a small but thriving textile industry. After World War II, entrepreneurs Francois Cleyn and Alec Tinker acquired the textile businesses in Huntingdon and built their company, Cleyn & Tinker Limited, into one of the most successful woolen mills in all of Canada. In Huntingdon, the business expanded to five interconnected operations around the town and the decades of the 1950s through to the early part of the 1970s saw the town prosper and the company acquire subsidiaries in Sherbrooke, Quebec and in Castlecomer, Kilkenny, Ireland.

In recent years, the small town had to deal with a substantial increase in teen vandalism. In August of 2004 a controversial municipal bylaw went into effect that placed a 10:30 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. curfew on unsupervised children aged 15 and under. The controversial bylaw held parents responsible for their children's activities through fines if a child was caught in violation of the curfew. After parents filed a legal action to have the bylaw overturned, the Council suspended its institution.

Huntingdon was also home to Huntingdon Mills (Canada) Ltd., another textile business and a significant employer in the town. In December of 2004, the company filed for bankruptcy protection and announced they would have to close putting more than 215 employees out of work. Cleyn & Tinker too announced it would be closing its operations in the town in April of 2005. Shortly after the announcement, some of the company's assets and supply contracts were acquired by the Greensboro, North Carolina based International Textile Group Inc. who have a partnership with China Ting Group, a textile manufacturer based in Hong Kong. On January 28, 2005, Mayor Stéphane Gendron announced that the town was purchasing the five textile plants that were closing with the expectation that they could be sold to new businesses.

The town has a bilingual (English & French) weekly newspaper, The Gleaner/La Source.