Those Other Franco-Americans: Berlin, N.H.

Those Other Franco-Americans: Berlin, N.H., Part I Patrick Lacroix, Ph.D. This article first appeared on querythepast.com/. Please cite appropriately. Recommended formatting: Chicago Manual of Style (Footnote) 1. Patrick Lacroix, “Those Other Franco-Americans: Berlin, N.H., Part I,” Query the Past, posted August 8, 2019, http://querythepast.com/other-franco-americans-berlin-nh-part-1/. MLA Style Manual Lacroix, Patrick. “Those Other Franco-Americans: Berlin, N.H., Part I,” Query the Past, 8 August 2019, http://querythepast.com/other-franco-americans-berlin-nh-part-1/. Accessed [date]. The Canadian element found in Berlin a safe, reliable place to live; and every year sees new families arrive from Canada. Berlin found in the Canadian a willing, obedient, and conscientious worker. The two combined are what has made Berlin what Berlin is today. – The Brown Bulletin, January 1927. There is something decidedly poetic about Aroostook and Coös, something that speaks of the landscape and its first inhabitants, that we do not have in the bureaucratic county names of Clinton and Franklin—meant to impose a national idea on the land. The history of New Hampshire’s Coos County makes for an especially interesting case study, not least for the land and resources that gave rise to one of the state’s great industrial centers. Joining the upper reaches of the Connecticut and Androscoggin rivers, northern New Hampshire was long travelled and inhabited by Abenaki bands. In areas, the terrain is quite rugged; it includes some of the highest peaks of the White Mountains. White settlers felt the pressures of the sometimes hostile environment and could feel quite isolated even on the two major rivers’ tributaries. Settlement nevertheless occurred in these wild expanses. The early years of the white American presence in fact make for some of the most storied moments in New Hampshire history, from Ethan Allan Crawford’s trials and tribulations at his mountain notch to the short-lived Indian Stream Republic at the northern tip of the state. Over the course of the nineteenth century, the town of Berlin emerged as the dominant economic center in the region. Although a township covering the area was granted prior to the American War of Independence, a community worthy of that name only formed in Berlin in the early 1820s; the New Hampshire legislature approved an act of incorporation in July 1829 and the first town meeting occurred on September 1. The town then had little cattle, little improved land, and little to suggest a booming future—save perhaps for a grist mill, built around this time, to which carding equipment was eventually added. Ultimately it was the railway that most profoundly altered the economic and demographic realities of Coos County, Berlin in particular. The completion of the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad in 1853 helped to further break the wilderness while connecting the region to major hubs—namely Montreal and Portland. The significance of water power did not recede entirely: it continued to move seemingly inexhaustible amounts of timber and to power local mills. But it was steam that brought rising numbers of lumberjacks and industrial workers to the region and helped to move out finished goods. The sawmill that appeared on the Androscoggin River as early as 1852 anticipated Berlin’s ultimate vocation—a center of the lumber and pulp and paper industries. Taking advantage of outer connections, local businessmen formed the Berlin Mills Company in 1866; in 1868, the corporation was reorganized under William W. Brown. The Browns would be involved in the leadership and upper management for nearly a century. (In fact, the concern became the Brown Company when conflict erupted between the United States and Germany in 1917.) The company expanded from sawing and lumber to pulp and paper in the 1880s. It established a world-class chemistry laboratory to support its activities. It eventually bought millions of acres of woodland in Quebec to feed the mills and notably established a plant in La Tuque, north of TroisRivières. It even altered the landscape of the Androscoggin to facilitate logging activities. The boom was such that when a fire destroyed the Lancaster, New Hampshire, courthouse, there was talk of moving the county seat to Berlin. In the end, the city would remain the industrial heart of Coos County rather than its administrative center. By 1903, writes Rebecca Rule, the ever-expanding mill complex housed a wood yard, pulp dryers, newsprint machines, and a hydroelectric plant. The mill was producing 200 tons of paper per day. To feed the hungry paper machine, scouts sought out the best softwood stands and logging camps sprang up like mushrooms on the hillsides in New Hampshire, Vermont, and northwestern Maine. In the beginning, all the trees were cut by hand and hauled or “twitched” out of the woods by horses. During spring log drives, the mass of logs filling the Androscoggin could extend five miles upriver. The Berlin Mills Company was not the lone industrial concern in the quickly growing city. The International Paper Company consolidated holdings all across northern New England—Berlin included— at the turn of the century. But, until the 1950s, nothing could compare to the power, influence, and wealth of the Browns, Berlin’s royals. Their role was patent in all sorts of paternalistic endeavors, including the settlement house formed by Caroline Brown, a daughter of Confederate general John B. Gordon who married into the family. By the 1870s, Berlin was on a steady ascent—both demographic and economic—that would make it one of the most important urban centers in the state. In 1880, it still lagged behind four other Coos towns in population; it hardly registered as a regional center. By contrast, by 1900, the City of Berlin, with its nearly 9,000 residents, had become the seventh largest agglomeration in the state. It helped to propel growth by which Coos outclassed three other, more southerly counties in sheer population. Canadians were an inescapable force in that process. Those Other Franco-Americans: Berlin, N.H., Part II Patrick Lacroix, Ph.D. This article first appeared on querythepast.com/. Please cite appropriately. Recommended formatting: Chicago Manual of Style (Footnote) 1. Patrick Lacroix, “Those Other Franco-Americans: Berlin, N.H., Part II,” Query the Past, posted August 15, 2019, http://querythepast.com/other-franco-americans-berlin-nh-part-2/. MLA Style Manual Lacroix, Patrick. “Those Other Franco-Americans: Berlin, N.H., Part II,” Query the Past, 15 August 2019, http://querythepast.com/other-franco-americans-berlin-nh-part-2/. Accessed [date]. Among the “Little Canadas” of the U.S. Northeast, Berlin’s developed relatively late. In 1860, the town was home to little more than 400 people, only twenty of whom had been born in the Canadas. (That small number nevertheless exceeded the Irish-born.) Most of the men were either lumber workers or farm laborers, with a few also connected to the railway. A French-Canadian presence was much clearer a decade later, with some single-family households and a substantial number in boarding houses. By 1900, 30.5 percent of Coos County inhabitants were foreign-born, and 88.5 percent of those were Canadian-born. French and English Canadians constituted the two largest immigrant groups. In fact, Coos then had the third largest French-Canadian population in absolute numbers among all counties in the state, after heavily industrialized Hillsborough and Strafford in the South. With these French Canadians, the Catholic institution grew. By 1860, according to a late nineteenthcentury source, there were about twenty-five [Catholic] families. Father Noiseux, a priest of Lancaster, used to come visit them three or four times during the year. They held their services in a private house. Later on Berlin was attended from Gorham; first by Father Sullivan, afterwards by Fathers Charland, Gorman, and Walsh. Father Charland first agitated the question of building a church, and bought the land on which the church was erected in 1880 by Father Gorman . . . [I]n August, 1885, a resident pastor was deemed necessary, and Right Reverend D. M. Bradley [Bishop of Portland] sent Rev. N. Cournoyer to minister to them. The congregation of St. Ann’s church now numbers about 1,500 souls, the greater portion being of the French nationality. The growing French-Canadian community could also boast two benevolent societies in 1888: a société Saint-Jean-Baptiste, presided by Oliver Lambert, and a société Saint-Joseph. And it had its own businesses, most notably the Lambert Brothers grocery store. The Canadians quickly earned the recognition their presence merited. The town elected selectman Calixte Lambert to the state legislature in 1888. John B. Gilbert, born in Canada and naturalized in October 1888, established a reputation as a hardware and furniture dealer and became mayor at the dawn of the twentieth century—possibly the first French-Canadian mayor in New Hampshire history. (Gilbert appears to have gained citizenship just in time to vote for Lambert; one of the witnesses was in fact another Lambert.) Canadians became key players in civic administration and, within the Brown Company, many became foremen. Further, Berlin’s first lawyer was the son of a Canadian immigrant. As told by the same local history as above, Robert Nelson Chamberlin, son of Antoine and Electa B. (Sears) Chamberlin, was born in Bangor, N. Y., July 24, 1856. His grandfather, François Chamberlin, was born in or near Paris, France, when young emigrated to Canada, and was a marine in the British service during the War of 1812. He attained the great age of ninety-nine years, dying at the home of his son in West Stewartstown [N.H.]. Antoine Chamberlin was a native of Nicollet, P. Q. When fourteen he went to Sherbrooke, worked eight years at shoemaking, married his wife at Hinesburg, Vt., her native place, and made his home in Franklin county, N. Y., residing in Malone and Bangor until 1859, when he came to West Stewartstown where he now resides. Robert was but three years old when his father came to Stewartstown, and, as he was one of a large family of children, and robust, he early became familiar with labor, and for years had the most meager educational advantages; from eight years of age until he was sixteen obtaining as a respite from continuous toil only a few weeks attendance at the small village school. At the latter age he had the physicial [sic] power of a well-matured man, and commanded more than the usual wages as a farm hand; but the thoughtful youth was not content to excel in this sphere. A laudable ambition prompted him to attain a higher position and a broader field of usefulness, and, as a stepping stone to this, he applied himself to the acquisition of learning. It required more than an ordinary will to force himself out from and above his associations and surroundings, and to fix his attention on an intellectual career, but his active and vigorous mind carried him on; he worked summers and devoted his winters to learning, attending the academies at Colebrook and Derby (Vt.), acquiring a good foundation for the study of law, in which he saw much to attract him, and for which he seemed well adapted. In the winter of 1877-78 he commenced his legal education in the office of G. W. Hartshorn, at Canaan, Vt., was admitted to the bar at Guildhall in March, 1881, and formed a partnership with Mr. Hartshorn. Attracted by the life and activity of the growing town of Berlin, Mr. Chamberlin, in July of the same year, established a law office there, thus becoming the first lawyer in the place. Finding that the rules of the New Hampshire bar barred him from practice in its courts, he applied for admission, passed the rigid examination creditably, and was admitted at Concord, March 15, 1883. He married, November 2, 1882, Maria H., daughter of Ira and Ann J. (Howard) Mason, a native of Berlin, a lady of strong New England practicality and sterling worth, in whom he has a helpmate, counselor, companion and friend. They have one child, Lafayette Ray. Mr. Chamberlin has made rapid progress for a young lawyer, has acquired a good clientage, and is popular with the older members of the legal profession, and is entitled to much credit for what he has accomplished. He has a clear conception of the strong and the weak points of a case, is earnest and industrious in the preparation and trial of causes entrusted to him, but prefers to keep his clients out of law-suits rather than involve them in protracted litigation. He always advises a fair and honorable adjustment of difference between parties, rather than the certain expense and the uncertain results at the hands of courts and juries. The same quiet, thoughtful determination which led him to obtain, unaided, a legal education, makes the first impulse of his mind in investigating any question to search for principles rather than expedients; this inclination will tend to make him particularly strong as a counselor, and in the domain of equity practice. His briefs, pleas, and other documents are drafted to cover every point, and one of the older members of the bar says: “They may appear awkward and clumsy, and easy to be torn to pieces, but on examination we find every point covered, and every nail clinched.” Of fine physique, commanding presence, and clear voice, he has the qualities of a good advocate, and is rapidly winning his way in that difficult field. His presentation of the claims of Berlin for the establishment of the county seat, at the late county convention, won much praise from leading men, and particularly his brother lawyers. As a citizen he heartily supports all local improvements and public enterprises calculated to advance the interests of the town and the welfare of the community; he has served as superintendent of schools, on the board of education, and is one of the selectmen of 1887. He is a member of the Congregational church, a Republican in politics, and a member of the Masonic order. Yet a young man. having scarcely attained the fullness of his physical and mental powers, Mr. Chamberlin may look forward to a long life of usefulness in his chosen profession. Chamberlin happened to play the violin and cornet and led the local band. He served as a selectman alongside Calixte Lambert in 1887-1888. He was elected to the state legislature and for a brief time served as speaker of the House. He rose to become a justice of New Hampshire’s Superior Court. Those Other Franco-Americans: Berlin, N.H., Part III Patrick Lacroix, Ph.D. This article first appeared on querythepast.com/. Please cite appropriately. Recommended formatting: Chicago Manual of Style (Footnote) 1. Patrick Lacroix, “Those Other Franco-Americans: Berlin, N.H., Part III,” Query the Past, posted August 22, 2019, http://querythepast.com/other-franco-americans-berlin-nh-part-3/. MLA Style Manual Lacroix, Patrick. “Those Other Franco-Americans: Berlin, N.H., Part III,” Query the Past, 22 August 2019, http://querythepast.com/other-franco-americans-berlin-nh-part-3/. Accessed [date]. Like prior studies on this blog (here, here, and here), attention to Berlin highlights the extremely diverse experiences of French Canadians on U.S. soil. These “migrants on the margins” enrich the overall story of Franco-America. In Berlin’s case, this is especially true as we enter the 1930s. French Canadians were long reputed to be a conservative force among industrial workers of the U.S. Northeast. There is evidence from mid-sized manufacturing centers that the Irish and other laborers were successful in bringing French Canadians into a cohesive labor movement at the end of the nineteenth century. But their reputation lingered as, overall, they continued to eschew radical politics. Depression-era Berlin offers a very different picture. When the city celebrated the centennial anniversary of its incorporation, in 1929, there was little to indicate that its steady growth would be checked. Only a few years later, the economic crisis had done just that. The International Paper Company shuttered its Berlin operation; the Brown Company, long the town’s engine of growth, eventually had to rely on municipal and State funds to continue its activities. The Depression caused despair and dislocation across the country, some of which was felt in Berlin. That would have been enough to reinvigorate older radical politics. After all, there were precedents: the Knights of Labor had had “a large membership” in the city in the 1880s and Union-Labor and socialists groups had appeared in the early twentieth century. But it was something altogether different that led to activist, third-party politics in northern New Hampshire. As historian Linda Upham-Bornstein explains, the city tax collector misappropriated $75,000 of municipal monies, which were lost in 1931 when his bank declared bankruptcy. To local citizens’ outrage, mayor Ovide Coulombe allowed the tax collector to remain in office despite the revelations; the council declined to pursue legal action. Some residents formed the Berlin Taxpayers Association and retained the services of attorney Arthur Bergeron, who petitioned the State to ensure the prosecution of the collector and the recovery of part of the funds. Apparent corruption, the contempt of municipal elites towards the working class, and continued economic hardship produced another organization, the Coos County Workers Club. In early 1934, dissident groups coalesced as the Labor Party (which became the Farmer-Labor Party when it sought to broaden its base). It is telling of the situation in Berlin that this third party captured the mayoralty and three city council seats in March of that year. In 1935, it conquered half of the council seats, with Bergeron, the editor of the Coos Guardian, a labor paper, gaining the mayoralty. The party’s sights were already set on the State House. At the time, the Christian Science Monitor profiled two of its leaders: Edward Lagassie [Legassie], a Farmer-Labor candidate for the State Senate, is a paper-mill worker and the father of our children. He denies his party is communistic, but he insists it is independent of Republican and Democratic forces. He and his party stand for more liberal workmen’s compensation laws, unemployment insurance and other direct benefits to the workers of the State. Arthur J. Bergeron, graduate of Dartmouth and Harvard law school, helped organize the Farmer-Labor Party, and is its candidate for county solicitor. Leaders say the party has no official connection with the Farmer-Labor Party of the Midwest. A Farmer-Labor Governor of New Hampshire in 1936 is the party’s announced goal. While the party’s program was very similar to the tenets of President Roosevelt’s Second New Deal, Legassie and Bergeron were disappointed with the National Recovery Administration and traditional politics. By 1936, the party could boast 4,000 members, most of them in northern New Hampshire—and, according to the Monitor, mostly French Canadians. It hoped to capitalize on the industrial dislocation of Depression-era Manchester and grow its base in the southern half of the state. Its efforts in this direction were largely in vain, but it was a testament to the organization’s strength in Berlin that Republicans and Democrats joined hands under former mayor J. Alex Vaillancourt to try to defeat Farmer-Labor leaders. The latter had, after all, succeeded in implementing much of their municipal agenda while maintaining cordial relations with the Brown Company and protecting the city’s fiscal situation. At the end of the 1930s, the Farmer-Labor Party was already past its prime, having outlived the burst of dissent that had created it, but Franco-American Amie Tondreau nevertheless ensured its hold on the Berlin mayoralty until 1943. Throughout the middle part of the century, French Canadians retained their place of prominence in Berlin and Coos. In 1940, even after a decade of immigration restriction, more than 10 percent of Coos County residents were natives of French Canada. English Canadians were the next largest group of foreign-born white residents. In third place was a small group of some 205 people born in Russia or the U.S.S.R. Berlin was a microcosm of the county. There, after the Russians, were Norwegian- and Italianborn populations. Following the trials of the Depression, Berlin experienced a late golden age that lasted into the 1960s. Afterwards, the mills changed hands a number of times, with short bursts of prosperity concealing the challenge of foreign competition and rising costs. Gradually, cuts were made. Canadian assets, including timberland and the pulp mill in La Tuque, were sold off. Plant closures in 2001 and 2006 definitively ended the era of large-scale manufacturing in northern New Hampshire. But that fate—the product of larger economic circumstances—cannot hide over a century’s worth of local accomplishments. For instance, in the 1860s, Berlin welcomed Elmire Jolicoeur, a teacher and boardinghouse keeper who helped to attract her fellow Canadians to the town. She would later get credit as the inventor of French-Canadian casserole—dubiously, as it turns out. A generation later, local workers set the “best sawing record on a single-cut band saw in an eleven-hour shift,” as recognized by the American Lumberman. The city was the birthplace of both Earl Tupper (of Tupperware fame) and Canadian musicologist Gaston Allaire; it was also home to one of the tallest ski jumps at this end of the country. Next-door Gorham was home to the great Cascade plant, “the finest paper mill then in existence and the world’s largest self-contained unit making both raw pulp and finished paper.” Berlin’s recent history is best told by those who experienced it and it just so happens that those voices are easily accessed. Anyone who is interested in learning about the North Country’s history should view At the River’s Edge: An Oral History of Berlin, New Hampshire, directed by Scott Strainge and released in 2010. What of French-Canadian heritage through this period of transition? As researcher Eric Joly explained in 2001, in the last third of the century, in the wake of industrial woes, the city’s population declined by over 20 percent; French culture receded especially with the closure of bilingual Notre Dame High School in 1972. Just as Berlin’s Little Canada formed fairly late during the “great hemorrhage,” its French character survived longer than in many other places. “Outside of northern Maine,” Joly wrote, “Berlin is the city where we find the highest number of people claiming to speak French at home in New England.” Two-thirds of residents claimed French heritage by the late 1990s. The author studied local youths’ attachment to their parents’ tongue and identity. He found the teenagers to be far less fluent in French than the older generation. But many nevertheless claimed French heritage—preferring the label of French-Canadian over that of Franco-American, actually. Without formal institutions devoted to the preservation of French, Joly concluded, “this Franco-American community is now experiencing its most critical period.” Perhaps its members may learn from the trials of other Franco communities in the U.S. Northeast—and find inspiration from the revival of FrenchCanadian culture in select cities, just as Berlin’s own history has inspired others to invest there. Bibliographical Note The Berlin and Coos County Historical Society is arguably the best resource for learning about the North Country—both in person and online. Its website holds historical images, portraits of different neighborhoods, and archival material, including digitized issues of the Brown Company’s Bulletin. Another website, a private initiative, also holds a wealth of information. The preservation of Berlin history is a great credit to the Historical Society (currently led by Renney Morneau) and to such active citizens as the late Paul “Poof” Tardiff. Two pictorial books have appeared—by Morneau and Jacklyn Nadeau—which commemorate the city’s better-known people and places. Few scholarly articles have brought focused attention to Berlin’s history. Among those cited above are William G. Gove’s “New Hampshire’s Brown Company and Its World-Record Sawmill,” Journal of Forest History, 30.2 (1986); William L. Taylor’s “Documenting the History of an Industrial City: The Brown Company Photograph Collection of Berlin, New Hampshire,” IA: The Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology, 19.1 (1993); Eric Joly’s “L’identité dans un milieu minoritaire: enquête auprès de la jeunesse franco-américaine de Berlin, au New Hampshire,” Francophonies d’Amérique, 12 (2001); and Linda Upham-Bornstein’s “Citizens with a ‘Just Cause’: The New Hampshire Farmer-Labor Party in Depression-era Berlin,” Historical New Hampshire, 62.2 (2008). See also Rebecca Rule’s article, “A Brief History of the Brown Paper Company,” cited above, in Northern Woodlands; on French Canadians in the American lumber industry, Jason L. Newton, “‘These French Canadian of the Woods are Half-Wild Folk’: Wilderness, Whiteness, and Work in North America, 1840–1955,” Labour/Le Travail, 77 (2016). Studies on mortality among pulp and paper workers appeared in 1979 and 1989 in the British Journal of Industrial Medicine. Images from the Brown Company’s archives have been digitized by Plymouth State University. Older works on the history of Berlin and Coos County are available on Archive.org and Google Books. Many annual city reports may also be accessed on Archive.org. Additional information for this series on Berlin was drawn from contemporary newspaper reports and U.S. Census returns.