Saint-Basile (Edmundston)

First settlement in the Madawaska region on the east bank of the St. John River, the village of Saint-Basile was founded in the 1780s by a large group of families, such as the Ayottes, Cyrs, Daigles, Dupérrés, Fourniers, Mercures, Potiers and Thibodeaus. They had left the Sainte-Anne-des-Pays-Bas (Fredericton) region to get away from the massive arrival of Loyalists following the American War of Independence. Saint-Basile was the region's institutional and economic activity centre until the first part of the 20th century, when Edmundston underwent major economic growth. The Religious Hospitallers of Saint-Joseph, pioneers in education and health services in Madawaska, opened a hospital, the Hôtel-Dieu (1873), and a college for girls, the Collège Maillet (1949) in the municipality of Saint-Basile, today the city of Edmundston's district 6.

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