York County Maine Rivers Attracted Franco Workers to Mills

York County's (in Maine, USA) usually quiet scenic rivers made major news during the recent week of torrential rain with dangerous flooding. “Inondations” or “les deluges” (words for “floods” en française) caused by excessive rain swelled sleepy rivers causing millions of dollars in damage. Yet, in the recent past, these rivers created mills and plenty of work for Franco-Americans and their immigrant ancestors.

Although usually quiet waterways, picturesque rivers like the Mousam, the Kennebunk, the Ogunquit and the Mildford Dam along the Salmon Falls River have a history of bringing commerce and industry to York County.

The attraction of plentiful water power brought industrial mills to the area and French-Canadians workers into Southern Maine and Southeastern, NH. Communities like Biddeford, Sanford, Kennebunk and Somersworth, NH grew along with the textile and shoe mills built along York County’s and Strafford County’s rivers.

Franco-Americans living in these communities today are descendents of the first French speaking immigrant mill workers, who came mainly from Quebec and the Canadian Maritime Provinces.

A typically quiet Mousam River winding its way through Sanford-Springvale recently surged to near flood levels near Muriel Poulin's Springvale home during the recent floods.
“The river didn’t rise into my back porch, but you sure wouldn’t want to be caught in the dangerous current,” said Poulin, a Springvale native and Franco-American.

A history of Maine’s rivers is written in, “Toward a New Balance in the 21st Century”, a summary about Maine’s dams and river restoration published by the Natural Resources Council of Maine.

Historically, Maine’s rivers served as routes of commerce for Native American peoples. French and other European settlers used Maine’s rivers for fishing and later for providing the power to support textile mills and factories.

Between the years 1830-1950, French speaking immigrants from Quebec and the Canadian Maritime Provinces were attracted by the industrial work created in saw mills, tanneries, paper mills and textile factories.

Individual stories about those attracted to work in the mills fueled by the hydro-power of Maine’s rivers are captured in the classic anthology “Quiet Presence: Histories of Franco-Americans in New England” by Dyke Hendrickson, published in 1980.
Stories include the Robert Lambert, from Somersworth, New Hampshire, where the Salmon Falls River recently closed streets due to “le deluge”.

Lambert talks to author Hendrickson about how his father was only 18 years old in 1896, when his family came down from Quebec to find work. “Mills were recruiting in Canada then, so people heard about the work available. My father and grandfather were farmers near St. Frederick, in New Brunswick, Canada, but the life was hard…..They didn’t have jobs when they came to Somersworth, but an uncle who was here for two years helped them get work.”

Lambert’s family intended to earn some money and return to their New Brunswick (Canada) farms to help buy better equipment and tools, but they actually never went back. Instead, they started roots in Somersworth.
In 1881, Lambert’s mother (Ruel) was only two years old when her family moved from Quebec Province to the Somersworth area.

“My parents (Lambert and Ruel) worked in the mills as a matter of course. They met there, they married and then the children came,” recalls Lambert.

At the age of 14, Lambert began working in the mills himself, where he earned about $11 a week.

Indeed, New England’s Franco-Americans can rightly say “Merci!” to the area’s volatile rivers for bringing their ancestors to America.