View from le Parc de la Jetée overlooking the Saint Laurence River

From the Saint Laurence to the Merrimack and back

By Louise Peloquin

For several weeks, Dick Howe has been posting photos of Lowell monuments testifying to the city’s rich and varied past. Although the following monument is located 384 miles to the north, it commemorates the French-Canadian history which links the Saint Laurence to the Merrimack.

Dedicated in July 2008 as part of the 400th anniversary celebration of Québec City’s foundation by Samuel de Champlain in 1608 and erected in le Parc de la Jetée on the banks of the Saint Laurence, the monument highlights the

“Cities and towns of New England where Franco-Americans had settled according to a 1940 survey.”

Lowell heads the Massachusetts list.

Among the “Donateurs – Donors” are two Lowellians:

• Marthe Biron Péloquin (1)
• Judge Louis Arthur Eno (1892-1965). (2)

Close up showing “Lowell”

Close up showing Lowell donors Marthe Biron Peloquin and Judge Louis Arthur Eno

Other monuments from the United States, such as the one offered by Vermont, are found in Le Parc de la Jetée.

Vermont monument

Monuments, plaques, statues and signs are always an exciting discovery because they contribute to keeping history alive.

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1. Louis-A. Biron’s younger daughter worked with her father at Lowell’s French-language nerwspaper L’Etoile. Her name appears on this monument because she was inducted into  “l’Ordre des Francophones d’Amérique” (the Order of French-Speakers of America, meaning, in this case, North America) in 1985 by René Lévesque, Prime Minister of Québec. Among her other distinctions, Marthe Biron Peloquin (1919-2012) was declared Lowell’s “Franco-American of the Year” in 1979, the first woman to hold the title.
2. Judge Eno was the presiding judge of the Lowell District Court from 1944 to 1965. A lifelong resident of Lowell, he graduated from Lowell High School and Harvard Law School and became an attorney in 1914. A World War I Army veteran. Judge Eno served as secretary of the Lowell Memorial Building Commission from 1919 to 1922 and was first appointed a special court justice in 1927.