I grew up in a place called Frenchtown. The neighborhood was platted as a subdivision of the small municipality known legally (if not a bit over-regally) as the City of Tomahawk. The person who owned the land and platted it was RC Thielman, brother of Julius Thielman of Merrill. The Thielmans were meat merchants. Julius eventually became very wealthy and influential in nineteenth century northern Wisconsin politics. RC came to Tomahawk when the brothers received a supply contract from the Tomahawk Land & Boom Company, who were building various works in 1886-87, most notably the dam. Construction camps were located in what is now downtown Tomahawk, as well as out near the dam. Eventually the Thielmans bought a lot on the main street of the new boom town of Tomahawk and built a store, the customer base having quickly become more generalized to include loggers and other workers and people not necessarily associated with TL&B.
It was named Frenchtown in the manner that other ethnically associated neighborhoods were named in that day, and for the same derogatory reason. French-Canadian immigrants were considered to be of a generally lower caste than the other Anglo-associated groupings, although like the Irish and Italians the discrimination was generally not strong and integration was eventually achieved fairly smoothly.
Among the “bluebloods” in the area, and said to have been particularly arrogant about their position with respect to the French-Canadians, were the founders of the TL&B. Oliver Pillsbury, Dr. John Cutter, the Bradley brothers (William, James and Edward), their wives, and many of their associates, were from Maine. Mainers of the time carried with them that certain type of New England elitism where family associations are important — what was your lineage, did your ancestors come on the Mayflower, those types of questions. The evidence for this is that in the day — in the late nineteenth century — both the Pillsburys and the Cutters had published (or a member of the family had published) detailed family genealogies and histories which are still extant. The Bradleys did not have a major published history (in the form of a book like the Cutters and Pillsburys) but are nevertheless featured more or less prominently in the historical accounts of the Bangor region — once again, back in the day.
One French-Canadian sawmill worker was my great grandfather, who was a boom tender in the Bradley mills. The boom tender worked out on the pond where the logs were sorted and stored, prior to sending them up a conveyor to the gang saws on the second floor of the mill. He was born and raised in another lumbering boom area near Ottawa, on the border between Lower Canada (modern Quebec) and Upper Canada, the latter being the more British-oriented section. He came west to work at various lumber operations, spending about 15 years in the Chippewa valley and environs, before moving to get work at the new operations in Tomahawk. The year was 1893 and what likely prompted the move was the Panic of that year which resulted in 40% of all sawmills closing their operations, and by then he had a young family to help feed. When the family first came to Tomahawk they apparently lived in a semi-legal log cabin on the outskirts of town, but eventually were able to buy land and build a home in the new neighborhood, where mill workers concentrated.
By coincidence, another of my great-grandfathers was employed by the Thielmans as a meat salesman. At one time this great-grandfather and the Thielmans filed articles of incorporation together, but that corporation eventually folded. Exactly why and how this partnership devolved into an employer-employee relationship is not accounted for in family history, although by all accounts the relationship remained cordial.
When I was a boy some of the neighborhood kids would complain that we were looked down upon because we lived in Frenchtown, but it was never very serious. I did feel like I was looked down upon, but I felt it was because I was a clueless klutz, and had nothing to do with my French-Canadian heritage.
Actually in retrospect we Frenchtowners had among the best possible lives as kids! We had great parks, close access to fishing and hunting, a local swimming area with a raft, and the free reign of our parents. As long as we were well-behaved, didn’t maim ourselves, and came home once in a while to eat, our summers consisted of endless exploration and adventures. My mom hardly ever had to tell me to go outside.
So take that William Bradley, and all you who thought that your elitist arrogance had some type of lasting meaning for yourselves. We the hoi polloi can now claim we have successfully usurped you. My fond remembrances of Frenchtown are something that is priceless beyond any of the dollars and erstwhile fame you achieved.
What prompted me to write this little account was a phrase I read in a British book about a person who “was born in Milk Street.” In America we would not say “in Milk Street” we would say “on Milk Street.” Is this merely idiomatic? I don’t think so, but rather represents a vision of how communities are organized and named. “In Milk Street” means “in the neighborhood associated with Milk Street.” In America we have generally assigned other names to our neighborhoods, and even when a neighborhood named for a street the name is appended with a word like “district,” as in the Castro District of San Francisco. It got me to thinking about the fact that I grew up on Pleasant Street and in Frenchtown.