Pour une mise en contexte par rapport à l’histoire franco-américaine, consultez mon billet détaillant les grandes lignes de ce passé ou encore mon survol du parcours politique des « Francos ». Il y a quelques années, il a été question ici même des gigantesques défilés de la fête de Saint Jean-Baptiste en Nouvelle-Angleterre à la fin du […]
Continue readingCategory: St. Albans, Vermont
A French-Canadian Journey: Saint-Césaire to St. Albans
See Part I here. The development of Saint-Césaire, on the Yamaska River, announced the expansion of French-Canadian settlement into areas either previously unoccupied by white settlers or hegemonically English-speaking. It lay on the doorstep of the Eastern Townships, colonized successively by Loyalists, other Americans inching New England’s northern frontier onto Canadian soil, and British immigrants. […]
Continue readingThose Other Franco-Americans: St. Albans, Part II
See Part I here. Six years after the invasion of St. Albans by Confederate agents, a different spectacle played out in the town center, though this one, too, was the doing of people who had descended from Canada: At 11 o’clock in the forenoon the Convention formed in procession, under escort of the St. John […]
Continue readingThose Other Franco-Americans: St. Albans, Part I
One particular claim to fame dominates the history of St. Albans, Vermont: the Confederate raid on local banks that was staged from Canadian soil in 1864. Other events that truly made the city remain little known to outsiders, as is the history of the region as a whole. The Confederate raid at least has the […]
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