Mont Saint-Hilaire - Names of Mont Saint-Hilaire

Names of Mont Saint-Hilaire

The mountain was known to the natives as Wigwomadensis (Wigwam-shaped mountain). When Samuel de Champlain discovered the mountain, he named it Mont Fort (which can be interpreted as "Fort Mountain" or "Strong Mountain").

The establishment of the town and parish of Chambly to the south led to the mountain temporarily becoming the Mont Chambly in the later seventeenth century (although the name persisted in English until at least 1830). After 1697, the mountain became known as the Mont Rouville, after the newly established seigneury of the Hertel de Rouville family.

When the Campbell family replaced the Hertel de Rouville, the mountain took up the name Mont Beloeil, after the nearby municipality of Beloeil, on the other side of the Richelieu River. However, the name Mont Saint-Hilaire, after the parish established at the foot of the mountain, became prevalent by the early twentieth century.

Even so, quarrels between inhabitants of the cities of Beloeil and Mont-Saint-Hilaire, both near the mountain, as to what the exact name of the mountain should be (between Mount Beloeil and Mount Saint-Hilaire) lasted well into the twentieth century, with the town newspapers of Beloeil attempting to resurrect the debate as late as 1986.