These last two weeks have been very interesting for those of us who have participated in the activities around the 4th of July celebration. Those who for some reason or other did not participate missed unforgettable history lessons.
Beginning with the raising of the flag of Quebec on Sunday, June 24th. Through the years we have been reporting, every year, the raising of flags of different nationalities but never before the Quebec flag.
As noted by Councilman Marc Laplante, initiator of the idea of raising the flag of Quebec, after participating in dozens of hoisting of flags of different nationalities, he estimated it was time to raise the flag of his predecessors.
Laplante took the opportunity to read the names of those residents of Lawrence who fought and died in the Canadian Expeditionary Forces in the war and those residents of Lawrence who had ties to Canada and mainly to Quebec, who fought and died with the North American Expeditionary Force.
Jim Beauchesne, Visiting Service Supervisor at Lawrence Heritage State Park, gave us an account of the arrival of French-Canadians families since 1604 in Acadia, three years before Jamestown and well before the Mayflower and offered a brief history of participation in the wars French-British Empire and how New England feared the North French-Catholic neighbor!
On Tuesday, July 3, the city of Lawrence celebrated its traditional July 4th, ending the night with fireworks.
The next day, on July 4, at the Heritage State Park Visitor Center, we received a valuable history lesson. There they taught us that the first celebration of July 4 in Lawrence happened in 1848. That a bell was used to attract the public to celebrate the occasion and that after the flag was raised, the mayor of the city and the elected officials, they read the Declaration of Independence.
It is to feel satisfaction when someone dedicates their time to look at the past, for episodes that perhaps happened centuries ago and bring them to new generations for their enjoyment. Our thanks to Richard Padova for a job well done and to the Lawrence Heritage State Park Visitor Center for presenting it.
The same night that Lawrence celebrated the festivities of July 4, the neighboring city of Methuen did it. According to Mayor Jajuga, when the preparations began, he proposed moving the show to The Loop, the shopping center that has made Methuen the favorite place in the valley, especially for the diversity of restaurants and turn it into advantage for the businesses in that area.
The proposal was accepted by all the shops in the area and as the photos on page 13 show, the event turned out to be a success. An example of economic development that can be imitated by other cities across the state, especially the Merrimack Valley.
