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Summertime in the BelgradesContentsfor Printing
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Walking Tour Traces Waterville's Heritage
The Museum In The Streets, an historic walking tour of Waterville, encompasses one mile, ten panels, and many memories of the town's French Canadian heritage — the largest ethnic minority to settle in Waterville during the 19th and early 20th centuries. A community within a community, the Franco neighborhood in Waterville's south end, commonly referred to as "The Plains," had dozens of four and five story wooden apartment buildings, 76 businesses, and even its own hockey team. It all began in the late 1820's, when work and a better life attracted immigrants from Quebec. For the first fifty years, over 85% of Waterville's French-speaking population came from just two small towns: Beauceville and St. Georges de Beauce. But as the mills expanded and new industries flourished, immigrants from many other Quebec towns.
In 1830, 20 French-Canadians, 1% of the population, lived in Waterville. By the early 1860's their numbers had increased to 544, 12.5%. By 1890, the combined French Canadian immigrant and the Franco-American native-born descendants population had grown to 3,228 or 43% — a percentage that has remained the same to this day. It is today's descendants who are behind the unique Museum in the Streets. They want their family story, the story of hard work and cultural infusion to be remembered. The result is ten illustrated plaques at significant sites from Castonguay Square on Main Street down through "The Plains." Each site is explained in English and French — a French that has been carefully edited to reflect local colloquialisms — and shows photos of the "way it was."
Highly significant to Waterville's history is the Lockwood Cotton Mill (the Hathaway building) which employed 1300 workers, many of them women and children. Working at the mill was an entrée to Waterville. Many of the workers, or their children, went on to own their own businesses. Many of the next generation became doctors and lawyers and town leaders. This story, the story of a tough people, of workers who weren't afraid to go off and start their own businesses is the story told by The Museum in the Streets. It helps explain the legacy of "a city in a city." And, it provides a pleasant outing from the downtown that is to the downtown that was — where empty mill buildings, tree-lined streets, views of the Kennebec River, and an 160-year old church remind museum visitors of a significant other time. Waterville's Museum in the Streets is one of three in the state. The other two are in Belfast and Thomaston. For information write to: P.O. Box 11, Cushing, ME 04563. | |||
