RichardHowe.com – Voices from Lowell & Beyond

Seen & Heard: Vol. 43

A weekly report on things I’ve read, heard and seen since last Wednesday. 

Book Review: Sword Beach: D-Day Baptism by Fire by Max Hastings (2025). Hastings is a well-known British journalist and military historian. This book details the experience of the British forces at one of the five beaches on which Allied forces on D-Day. Most of us are familiar with the two beaches assigned to the US Army which were code named Omaha and Utah. The British landed on Sword and Gold; the Canadians on Juno. (Hastings shares that British planners named these three beaches for fish, as in Swordfish and Goldfish. Juno was initially called Jelly as in jellyfish, until Winston Churchill decreed the name too wimpy and changed it to Juno.) I’ve read much about the US experience on D-Day but was mostly oblivious to what happened in the British sector. This account includes the 6th Airborne Division which dropped inland from the British beaches as the US 101st and 82nd Airborne did in the American sector. Notably, British glider-borne troops proved decisive in the opening minutes of the attack. There were two bridges inland that were critical for linking the invasion force with the airborne troops further inland, so these bridges had to be seized before the Germans could demolish them. Several gliders filled with troops landed immediately adjacent to the bridge. Unlike troops delivered by parachute who are widely scattered when they hit the ground and take time to assemble, a successful and accurate glider landing – which these were – delivers a mass of troops right on the objective. In the big picture, Hastings acknowledges that the British plan to rush inland and seize the major city of Caen on the first day was unrealistic, but that the sole focus on making it onto the beach kept troops from training for what to do once they were ashore. This training gap made a mission with only a slight chance of success unfeasible. However, Hastings says that whatever the shortcomings of the British, the German’s failure to get nearby tank units moving promptly towards the beachhead was the critical mistake on June 6. While the allies were not able to immediately break out of their beachhead, they were able to expand and reinforce it enough to withstand whatever else the Germans threw at them afterwards.

Art Exhibition: America in the Making at the Addison Gallery of Art, Phillips Andover. The Addison is a superb museum located 20 minutes from Lowell. Admission is free and new exhibits seem always to be on view. The current show is “America in the Making” which draws on the Addison’s collection to chart America’s journey from the Declaration of Independence to the present as reflected in the art of the time. The exhibit fills the entire museum and is hung chronologically with portraits of colonial era merchants, the elite in the new democratic society, giving way to immense landscape paintings that reflected westward migration and the Manifest Destiny doctrine. Then as the nation modernized, artists addressed the complexity of life by turning from realism to abstraction. How artists respond to current times in the US remains to be seen, however, the Addison does not take federal funding so is not subject to the same government censorship that curtails what can be displayed at the Smithsonian and in our National Park Museums.

Obituary: Harry Lew (1884-1963), New York Times, October 21, 2026. As a historian, the obituary section of the New York Times is one of my favorite parts of the newspaper. Most listed have died recently, but the paper also reaches back in history to highlight people who died long ago and were underappreciated or unacknowledged at the time of their passing. Recently, the Times afforded such coverage to Harry “Bucky” Lew of Lowell, Massachusetts, who is credited with being the first Black professional basketball player in the United States. Many of us are aware of this history, especially after local author Chris Boucher (whose mentioned in the Times article) published his Harry “Bucky” Lew: A Biography of Basketball’s First Black Professional earlier this year. Now, thanks to the wide reach of the Times, more people, especially basketball fans and players, will know of this accomplishment.

Podcast: James Marriott on the End of Reading – I watched this on a YouTube channel called “Persuasion” but it’s also a podcast called “The Good Fight.” The presenter is Yascha Mounk, a German-American political scientist teaching at Johns Hopkins University. This episode was an interview of James Marriott, who is a columnist with the London Times newspaper, but the focus was his new book, The New Dark Ages: The End of Reading and the Dawn of a Post-Literate Society. Marriott argues that a “reading revolution” in the late 18th century propelled Europe and what became the United States into the Enlightenment and mass democracy. He explained that the maturation of the printing press meant more books were available; that the increasingly complex modern state and economies required literate bureaucrats and merchants; and that the rise of Protestantism, a religion the emphasized the written word, were all factors in this revolution. Marriott further argues that the decline in reading today is a factor in the erosion of democracy in the US and Europe. The host pushed back on this thesis, suggesting that literacy had arose because of economic advances rather than the other way around. I tend to fall on the Marriott side of this argument mostly because of my own experience. I enjoy reading but often find it easier to sit in front of a video screen and consume whatever comes up rather than expend the effort needed to read something complicated. There’s a place for both, but one shouldn’t crowd out the other.

Celebrating UMass Lowell Library

Celebrating UMass Lowell Library

By Louise Peloquin

From 4 to 6 PM on October 20th, the UMass Lowell Library and Alumni Relations held an open house and gathering at the O’Leary on 61 Wilder Street.

At 4:30, Senior Vice Provost of Academic Affairs Julie Nash spoke to the 200-odd guests in attendance. She pointed out that the October 20th open house was “years germinating as a dream” in her mind given that the library was “the hub of the university” which, thanks to its outstanding team and student staff, “make everything possible and find a solution when you think there’s no solution.”

The Senior Vice Provost then thanked the Dean of the University Library Galadriel Chilton for her “leadership and persistence.”

Dean Chilton took the floor and thanked everyone for attending. Among her many colleagues, she especially thanked “the students and staff whose vision and work made this program possible such as…Tony Sampas, Sara Marks and Sarah Manchester who served on the event planning team.”

The Dean then specified that her priorities are: “the staff to champion learning; the collections; the library space” and ensuring that the library remain “a dynamic social organization.”

The UMass library employs 85 students. Several had the opportunity to speak.

Staff member Carisa Kolias introduced Connor Shaw who elaborated on his experience in the Archives and Special Collections department. Among his activities is working on the Paul Marion Papers Collection which he is undertaking with great enthusiasm.

Staff member Nikki Tatum then introduced Daranee Khoeun who classified Southeast Asian Digital Archives, Hellenic Digital Archives and more. Ms. Khoeun underlined the importance of the commitment to highlighting local history.

Staff member Steph Schweighardt introduced four students employed in Access Services – at the circulation desk and at research support for example. Speaking in turn, Maveen Faisal, Amelia Hanson; Lydia Yang and Mercy Reynoso-Germosen all agreed that their experience helped them develop their communication skills, boosted their self-confidence and heightened their satisfaction in the fact that they were “serving the local community.” All four expressed their gratitude for “the support of their supervisors.”

Monica Collier, a UMass Lowell 2026 English Studies graduate who received the Chancellor’s Medal for her academic achievement, then presented the series of stained-glass windows she has donated to the UMass Lowell O’Leary Library. In addition to being an educator and ESL teacher, she is an accomplished artist. Monica Collier explained that her four magnificent windows “are inspired by covers of books published in the early 1920’s Harlem Renaissance era when Black artists, musicians, writers, entrepreneurs, etc. … contributed so much to American culture.” The windows were on display at the gathering to the delight of the guests attending.

Dean of the University Library Galadriel Chilton gave closing remarks before inviting attendees to “mingle and enjoy the refreshments.” The UMass Lowell library, with its three locations, “has three hearts like an octopus” she said before adding that “it is also “a lighthouse to light the way” bringing clarity and guidance to all.

Exhibits and displays were open to the public on the 3rd and 4th floors of the O’Leary. We especially noticed items now part of the Franco-American Digital Archive Collection such as the first issue of “Le Journal de Lowell” which was published from 1975 to 1995.

The October 20th event demonstrated how the library continues to make a lasting impact on students, faculty, alumni and the broader community.

Ballot Question 3: moving from partisan to all-party primaries in MA by Marjorie Arons-Barron

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog.

A basic premise of our democratic form of government is that people choose their leaders, one person exercising one vote. (This, despite legislative redistricting, where leaders try to choose their voters.) In Massachusetts, we don’t get to choose among all candidates for statewide office, whatever their parties. The parties act as gatekeepers. Even with thousands of supporters, some candidates never make it onto the primary ballot. Question 3 would enable voter access to the widest field.

Right now, party convention delegates, chosen by caucuses, cull each field of statewide candidates before voters can weigh in. Republicans and Democrats use candidate support from at least a15 percent of convention delegates to qualify for the primary ballot. A candidate who misses the threshold for state convention support by a narrow margin can only run as a write-in.

With an all-party state primary, as envisioned by Question 3, all qualifying Republicans, Democrats, third party and independent candidates would appear on the same primary ballot. Voters would choose one candidate for each office, regardless of affiliation. Candidates could, however, display on the ballot their party affiliation and, if applicable, party endorsement. In the new system, the top two vote getters for each office – regardless of party – would be the only ones listed on the November general election ballot.  Gubernatorial and lieutenant governor candidates would run as a team.

Q. 3 should incentivize greater primary participation. Voters would get a larger primary field, but only two candidates would appear in  November, when more voters go to the polls. Independent and minor party candidates would lose their current general election access and must instead survive the all-party primary. California and Washington report zero third-party or independent candidates serving in their legislatures. Increasing major party competition comes with costs and trade-offs.

Massachusetts has real institutional problems. It has earned its reputation as one of the least electorally competitive states. For most of the last eight election cycles, Massachusetts has been one of the three least competitive (often the least) states in legislative elections, that according to Ballotpedia. Q. 3 could address that unhealthy distinction.

In Massachusetts, an unenrolled voter may take either party’s ballot but is locked into that party’s nominees for every office. MA voters have a history of ticket splitting in November, voting for a governor from one party and other candidates from another party. Question 3 would allow this in the primary. Two former governors, Republican Charlie Baker and Democrat Deval Patrick are both Q. 3 supporters, in contrast to officials of their own parties.

I have knowledgeable friends I respect on both sides of Q. 3. As I have struggled with the issue, I’ve researched it, read published materials and interviewed election experts and California voters. Most California voters complained they had to choose a gubernatorial candidate from a field of 61 in last June’s all-person primary to identify the top two for November’s ballot. It took days for the results to be tabulated, but it got done in the end. (It should be noted that Massachusetts requires 10,000 signatures for gubernatorial candidates to get on the ballot while California requires under 100.)

Q. 3 critics warn that the top two vote getters could both be Republicans or both be Democrats, locking out the other (majority) party (This occurred in California twice, one in a House race in 2012 and a state Senate race in 2022, and in aWashington state treasurer race in 2016.) Given the number of races, it seems to be a rare occurrence.

If states are intended to be “laboratories of democracy,” “blue” Massachusetts presents an interesting case for all-party (or all-person) voting. Nearly two thirds are registered as unenrolled, a higher percentage than in any other state. Polls here indicate those “independents” who lean Democrat outnumber those who lean Republican about three to one. Alaska (63.2) has a nearly similar high percentage of unenrolled and nonpartisan voters, but the majority of them have traditionally favored Republicans. (Just 22.9 percent of Californians record “no party preference.”) Massachusetts’ exceptionally high unenrolled registration does not itself prove that the electorate wants less partisan government. It does, however, call attention to whether existing state elections provide meaningful choices among candidates who may share a party affiliation but differ substantially in how they would govern.

For Q. 3, a key question is how many “independents” who regularly vote for Democrats would welcome a meaningful choice between two Democrats in November instead of just an unopposed option? Cities in Massachusetts already have nonpartisan mayoral preliminary and general elections. People seem comfortable with hard-fought debates between and among individuals in the same party and are able to discern differences among them.

In a crowded open-seat field, a candidate can advance on a small plurality while ideologically similar candidates split a majority and are virtually eliminated. One example we have seen: When Jake Auchincloss first ran for Congress in 2020 from the state’s 4^th CD in a nine-person field, he won with 22.4 percent of the vote, defeating a cluster of candidates to his left. His was the minority moderate choice. Since then, as reported by the Newton Beacon, a majority of the district now gives him a 75 percent job approval and 67 percent favorability rating. Under Q3, he might have lost his first race.

Supporters of Q. 3 assert that the all-party primary will reduce polarization at both ends of the political spectrum because candidates will have to appeal to a broader electorate. (This was part of Charlie Baker’s endorsement.) While this might seem logical, studies of voting records in both California and Washington state done in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020 and 2024 show only modest reduction in polarization, and findings are inconsistent, making claims like Baker’s overstated.

Opponents of Question 3 warn that an all-party primary could give wealthy candidates an advantage, particularly when large fields make it expensive to stand out and differentiate themselves. Wealthy candidates could self-finance themselves into top slots is a legitimate concern, although hardly a problem unique to the proposed system. Clearly there’s already obscenely too much money everywhere in politics today, made worse by Citizens United and its progeny. It’s a preexisting widespread problem that must be addressed irrespective of this ballot question.

Importantly, personal wealth doesn’t automatically translate into electoral success. Josh Kraft (son of Bob) spent $5.5 million of his own money, compared to Mayor Michelle Wu’s $1.8 from all sources. Kraft won just 23 percent of the vote.  Money means little if you’re not a strong candidate with a clearcut message and good organization. We see gross expenditure of personal wealth – $16 million so far – in Republican Mike Minogue’s gubernatorial campaign to defeat Maura Healey. Several independent polls show him behind by 20 percentage points or more. (Suffolk/Globe, UMA/Amherst, MassINC. UNH poll shows a 16-point spread

Opponents also warn of gamesmanship, like one party putting up candidates in the opposing party to splinter the vote. That exists in the current system. We’ve seen that in traditional party primaries in South Carolina , Iowa and Georgia, where partisans on one side crossed to the other party primary to support candidates who would be more beatable in the general. In 2022 in Pennsylvania, Democrat Josh Shapiro worked to boost election denier Doug Mastriano in the GOP primary, figuring the Trump supporter would be more beatable that November.

Name confusion is another trick warned about. How often were candidates named Kennedy put up because they share a name with a Massachusetts political dynasty? In 1954, one John F. Kennedy became state treasurer because he shared a name with the then-U.S. Senator. Political candidates have long gamed the system.

Finally, I was uneasy about Q. 3’s provision that, if two candidates tied for the second place on the November ballot, the Commonwealth’s Secretary would choose the winner of the second slot “by lot.” Legally, that could happen in New Hampshire or Connecticut but not in Massachusetts. If passed, the legislature should amend the law by requiring a run-off.

Eight-term Republican Oklahoma Congressman Mickey Edwards (now an independent) has been pushing for a Q.3 type primary for years. A former Harvard and Princeton professor and the author of The Parties Versus the People: How to Turn Republicans and Democrats Into Americans. He calls it an all-person rather than an all-party primary. “In a democracy,” he says, “all have equal rights to participate in every step of the election process. There is no requirement to join a club.”

Former chairman of the Mass. Democratic Party and of the Democratic National Committee, progressive Steve Grossman has spent a lifetime trying to increase political participation.  He sees the all-party primary as a way to bring attract first-time candidates, increase minority voting and convince young people that they can make a difference.  A big- D Democrat, his primary goal is small-d democracy and sees Q. 3 as a tool to enhance that.

If adopted, the parties would still be able to hold conventions, do candidate recruitment, development, training and support.(Question 3 lacks language on who and how candidates get endorsed.) They just couldn’t have the final word on whom we get to choose on the ballot.

Are there imperfections and uncertainties in the Q.3 proposal? Yes, but remember, this ballot question is an initiative petition, not a constitutional amendment. It doesn’t go into effect until 2028, and the legislature has more than a year to amend it.  They could even emulate Alaska’s all-person primary producing top four vote-getters followed by ranked choice voting (RCV) in the general election, which has its own appeal.  (Note: Massachusetts rejected a 2020 RCV initiative resulting from a muddled and ineffective voter education campaign.)

Arguably, an all-party primary asks more of voters, possibly including a greater effort to educate themselves about candidates’ policies, experience and character. But, if it does lead to a more open democratic process, that effort will have been well expended.  My wrestling with the issue leads me to a Yes on Question 3.

Lowell Politics: October 25, 2026

On Tuesday, the Lowell City Council voted to borrow $3,373,000 to purchase the Senior Center Property at 276 Broadway. The memo that accompanied the proposed loan order laid out the rationale for the purchase which I’ll summarize below after some historical context for this transaction.

The city long-ago owned this property, purchasing it and the lot across Broadway (now a Market Basket grocery store) in 1869 for $20,000. The Market Basket property was home to the city’s street department while the Senior Center property was home to the “ashes and waste” department in the era before trash pickup was privatized. These uses pre-dated motor vehicles, so wagons and many horses were involved. To house the horses, the building on the Senior Center lot was known as the “city stables” (sometimes, “city barns”) while the smaller brick building closest to Broadway on the same lot was known as the “blacksmith building” (horses need blacksmiths).

That’s how things stood until the late 1990s when the city launched its Acre Urban Revitalization and Development Project. The newly constructed Market Basket on Broadway anchored this plan which included the rehabilitation of 500 units of housing and the construction of 150 new units throughout the neighborhood.

The city also decided that the city stables building would be a good site for a dedicated senior center. Before that, the Lowell Council on Aging had a place in the Smith Baker Center, across from City Hall, but that facility was lacking in space and amenities essential to a modern senior center.

In 2001, the city conveyed the city stables parcel to private developers Nick Sarris and George Behrakis as trustees of City Barns Trust. The developers agreed to rehabilitate the existing buildings and construct a new addition. The city would then lease approximately 60 percent of the building to be used as the senior center with the city paying rent pursuant to a 20 year lease. At the end of the 20 years, it was understood that the developers would “gift” the property back to the city although that reversionary language was omitted from the deed conveying ownership to the developers. The developers would also rent the remainder of the property which constituted two uses: a portion of the senior center building to be used as a drug store which was leased to Walgreen’s Pharmacy and the full blacksmith building used by and rented to a physical therapy business.

The deal was structured this way so that the city could use federal Community Development Block Grant funds to pay the lease rather than paying it from the city’s annual budget or by borrowing money for the rehabilitation and adding to the city’s bond indebtedness.

In recent years, the lease expired on its own terms, but the parties continued as if it was still in effect. (The city did not convey the property to the developers until 2003, and the senior center did not open until 2004, so I assume the 20 years began in one of those years which would mean the lease expired in 2023 or 2024.)

Whenever the lease expired, the city stopped paying rent. Because there was no valid lease in place, the city auditor could not authorize any rental payments, so the city fell in arrears on its rent. For whatever reason, the developer allowed the city to continue using the senior center while the arrearage grew.

To resolve the expired lease and rent arrearage issues, City Manager Tom Golden negotiated a proposed lease extension which he presented to city councilors last year. However, the council rejected the lease proposal on a tie vote which sent Golden back to the negotiating table. The present agreement emerged from that effort.

Notably, in July 2025, the developer “condominiumized” the property by creating three condominium units. Unit 1 was the senior center space. It consisted of 22,193 square feet and accounted for 57.4 percent of the overall building space. Unit 2 was the Walgreen’s Space (the portion of the building once occupied by the Walgreen’s Pharmacy which has since closed). It consisted of 12,283 square feet and accounted for 30.7 percent of the space. Unit 3 was the Blacksmith Building which consisted of a standalone 6,789 square foot building which accounted for 11.9 percent of the space.

The current agreement negotiated by City Manager Golden and ratified by the city council by their vote on Tuesday to borrow the money needed for the deal will pay the developer $3,373,000 to buy out the developer’s ownership interest in the property and to settle any claim for unpaid rent for the senior center space. Essentially (but not expressly) the agreement does “gift” the senior center condominium unit to the city while selling the city the Walgreen’s condominium unit, the Blacksmith’s Building condominium unit, and the parking lot.

City Manager Golden was not at Tuesday’s meeting, however, CFO Conor Baldwin answered fiscal questions raised by councilors. Baldwin explained that the city will bond this new $3.37 million indebtedness over 20 years which will require roughly $250,000 per year in payments by the city for those 20 years, an amount which will come from the city’s operating budget rather than from federal CDBG funds which cannot be used for that purpose. He also explained that while Walgreens Pharmacy closed several years ago, Walgreens continue to pay rent for the space per its lease which runs into 2028. Also, the physical therapy business that occupies the Blacksmith condominium unit rents that space on a month-to-month basis and continues to pay rent.

Presumably, once the city acquires title, which is supposed to occur in December, it will become the landlord and receive rental payments although I’m not sure how that works from a municipal finance perspective. Will the rent received be allocated directly to the bond payment, or will it have to go into the general fund? In any case, I assume that if Walgreens is paying rent for that space, the city will be unable to use that space since if the city did take it over, it would let Walgreen’s off the legal hook created by its lease. (I assume Walgreen’s had a significant operating loss while the pharmacy was open and decided to cut its losses by closing the drug store even though it was obligated to continue paying the lease until it expires.)

The building is also in need of repairs. The city’s current capital spending plan contains $450,000 for repairs to the senior center space, but according to the City Manager’s memo, the overall space, including the senior center, needs immediate repairs that will cost approximately $1,850,000, plus another $5.7 million in repairs during the next five years. CFO Baldwin said that the next proposed capital plan will include at least some of those funds.

I think everyone would agree that the city needs a functioning senior center. Given the history of the current center, the politics – present and past – involved, the legal ambiguities surrounding the rights of the parties and the lack of a feasible, affordable, timely alternative, the city’s acquisition of the property under the terms laid out on Tuesday seems like the best possible outcome.

Still, the willingness of recent city councils to spend money seems out of step with what’s happening in the country today. Economists and national elected officials tell us that the economy is doing great, but most people don’t see that when they pay for housing, gas or groceries.

Four years ago, the city received a fiscal windfall of $75 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds. My memory is that that money was spent on social impact programs ($13.4 million); water & sewer infrastructure ($10.6 million); fire department vehicle replacement ($10 million); neighborhood & parks improvements ($9 million); enterprise fund replacement ($8 million); school building upgrades ($7 million); business revitalization ($7 million); non-profit sector support ($4.6 million); premium pay for essential workers ($3 million); and administrative costs ($2.4 million).

Instead of saying, we were fortunate to get all of this unexpected money, we spent it wisely, now let’s hold the line on future increases so we don’t recklessly inflate the cost of government, the council has continued to spend as if ARPA-like cash infusions are a regular occurrence. Anytime you leave your house these days, it seems you encounter some road repair project as part of the city’s so-called “horizontal construction” boom; the fire department seems to blow through its annual overtime budget in the first quarter of the fiscal year; given the spike in fuel prices, I assume there will be a supplemental city budget to pay for higher gasoline and diesel costs; interest rates continue to rise which makes the city’s borrowing of money more expensive; and the city has acquired several major real estate properties (40 Market Street from Align Credit Union in July 2025, the former St. Jenne d’Arc School from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston in May 2025, and now the senior center complex in 2026). All three have acquisition costs and future operations and maintenance costs that are all new to the city budget.

Taken separately, each of these council spending decisions can be rationalized, but collectively they set the city up for a much harsher fall when the economy turns downward as it inevitably will. It’s important that someone in government acts as the chaperone who has the foresight to take away the punchbowl just when the party is really warming up. Presently in Lowell, that role seems to be vacant.

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Thanks to everyone who attended this fall’s Lowell Cemetery tours. Between the two regular tours on October 3rd and 4th, and the Edgar Allen Poe-themed tour on October 17th, we had 445 people participate. I’ll announce the dates of the spring 2027 tours after the first of the year, but for now, if you’d like to get a taste of the cemetery tours, local YouTuber Ratbas (aka Steve Albert) recorded the full 90-minute Poe tour.

Steve also captured on video most of the events on the Lowell Celebrates Kerouac weekend including the incomparable Kurt Phaneuf’s “Kerouac’s Characters” tour of St. Joseph Cemetery in Chelmsford.

One of the graves featured on that tour was the burial place of Louis A. Biron (1861-1947), the longtime editor and proprietor of L’Etoile, a French language newspaper published in Lowell continuously from 1886 until 1957. Biron hired Leo Kerouac to work for the newspaper as a printer. That job opportunity caused Kerouac to move from Nashua to Lowell where his son, the celebrated author Jack Kerouac was born in 1922. Now, Biron’s granddaughter, Louise Peloquin, has published the story of L’Etoile in Lowell complete with examples of the paper’s coverage in French with English translations. L’Etoile: A Star on Prince Street is available for purchase online.

A longtime contributor to my richardhowe.com website, Louise graciously allowed A Star on Prince Street to become Volume 3 of my Encyclopedia of Lowell History series. This is my effort to preserve the city’s print legacy by publishing books on Lowell History.

Volume 1, Lowell: A Concise History, and Volume 2, Regret to Inform You: The Human Cost of World War II in Lowell, Massachusetts, are both available for online purchase and are also for sale at lala books at 189 Market Street in Lowell.

Local attorney Jay Gaffney also has a new history book. Fathers and Sons in Native New England: Massasoit, Passaconaway, Their Sons, and the End of Two Great Algonquian Nations tells the story of early New England, especially of King Philip’s War, a deadly conflict that devastated this region and helped shape the community that would become the city of Lowell. The book is available for purchase online.

Finally, Henri Marchand has written a comprehensive article on the history and closure of the Pawtucketville Social Club. The article was recently published in Résonance, an electronic literary journal published under the Franco American Program of the University of Maine.