Farnham First Federal Building

In 1898.

NARRATOR (female voice)
You’re standing in front of the first federal building established in Farnham. The land was purchased by the Federal Parliament in 1892 for $1,500. An additional $4,000 was spent on the construction of the building that would house the post office.

Farnham’s post office was built in 1893 and the building was used for this purpose for forty-four years, until 1937.

NARRATOR (male voice)
M. Louis-Édouard Choquette was the first postmaster assigned to the premises, from 1893 to 1895, when his son William-Frédérick took over the position until he passed away in 1938.

NARRATOR (female voice)
The Farnham Customs and Excise office was also established here by Joseph-Alfred-Edgard Bisaillon. Here’s a little anecdote concerning Mr. Bisaillon: Did you know that his name was linked to prohibition? He even perjured himself during the 1925 trial when he claimed that much of the money in his bank account came from his ministry and that it was intended for opening a customs office in Farnham.

In 1926, before the parliamentary committee, he admitted that these sums came instead from the sale of alcohol from a shipment that his men, customs officers, had seized for the purpose of reselling it.

NARRATOR (male voice)
In 1937, the post office and Customs and Excise offices moved to a new building at the corner of rue Principale-Est and rue St. Vincent and this building became the property of the provincial government.

In March 1979, the Provincial Government sold the building to Farnham’s Centre local de services communautaires which will have owned it for 6 years before the Colibri Daycare Centre purchased it. That same year, the daycare centre also purchased two other lots from the City of Farnham.