The territory of the municipality of Saint-Joseph-du-Lac was part of the Lac des Deux-Montagnes Seigneury for over a hundred years. This seigneury was granted on October 17, 1717, to the Sulpician Order of the Ecclesiastical Seminary of St. Sulpice in Paris, who already were lords of the Island of Montreal. In 1783, the Sulpicians signed a total of 25 concessions. Over the next ten years, from 1782 to 1793, 81 lands on the Saint-Joseph side were granted to settlers. In 1803, Côte Saint-Joseph Road was extended northward to allow settlers to travel to Saint-Benoît.[4]
Around 1850, the inhabitants of the Saint-Joseph Concession started the process if obtaining a parish, which was formally established in 1853. Two years later on July 1, 1855, the Parish Municipality of Saint-Joseph was formed.[5] It extended over a length of 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from Lake of Two Mountains to the limits of Saint-Benoît Parish, and a width of 3.5 kilometres (2.2 mi). The population at that time was 1020 people in about 180 families.[4]
In 1856, the post office opened, being identified as Saint-Joseph-du-Lac in order to distinguish it from the many other locations called Saint-Joseph. In time this name also came to be used for the entire municipality.[5]
In 1953, the southern portion of the municipality along Lake of Two Mountains separated from Saint-Joseph-du-Lac and became the Village Municipality of Pointe-Calumet.
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In the 1970s, Autoroute 640 was built through Saint-Joseph-du-Lac, putting economic pressure on the municipality. This led to new housing developments for Montreal commuters and a noticeable growth in population that had previously been stable for nearly 80 years. During the following two decades, several more new developments were built, including the Paquin, Brunet, and Parc Sectors.[4]
^"Admission et inscriptionArchived 2015-01-31 at the Wayback Machine." Commission scolaire de la Seigneurie-des-Mille-Iles. Retrieved on December 7, 2014. "La Commission scolaire de la Seigneurie-des-Mille-Iles (CSSMI) offre ses services aux résidents des municipalités de : Blainville, Boisbriand, Bois-des-Filion, Deux-Montagnes, Lorraine, Mirabel (Saint-Augustin, Saint-Benoît, Sainte-Scholastique et secteur du Domaine-Vert), Oka, Pointe-Calumet, Rosemère, Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines, Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac, Sainte-Thérèse, Saint-Eustache, Saint-Joseph-du-Lac, Saint-Placide et Terrebonne Ouest."