Portrait of Maxime Albert.
Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph.
Initially a farmer and merchant, Maxime Albert was also very involved in smuggling alcohol. He quickly became the richest businessman in Saint-Hilaire. A great fishing enthusiast, in the early 1920s he built the Long Lake Sporting Club, a restaurant and recreation facility located in Sainte-Agathe, Maine. Pious and generous, he donated the land and provided the materials to build the church in Saint-Hilaire. Popular history tells us that the loads of bricks destined for the construction of the church hid something more… In 1924 Maxime lost two of his sons, Antoine and Lionel, in a nighttime explosion at the family farm. The place was known as a distillery. It can easily be deduced that the two young men were busy making contraband alcohol. Although arrested several times, Maxime Albert was never convicted. However, when he began to feel too much police pressure, he went into exile in the United States.