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19 Station Road |
New Brunswick Tourism Region : St. John River Valley
Description From Owner:
- Bristol first took its name from the stream which had been named by the Maliseet.
- The English pronunciation of the original name, however, 'was sometimes less than refined,' so the place was renamed for Bristol in England, possibly inspired by nearby Bath.
- Florenceville was settled in 1832 and first known as Buttermilk Creek after a brook at the site that churned up whitish water resembling buttermilk.
- In 1855 during the Crimean War (1853-56) Lieut. Gov. L. A. Wilmot renamed the place to honour Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), the founder of modern nursing and heroine of the Crimean War.
- The name was later changed to Florenceville East and then East Florenceville. In 1966 it was incorporated as a village and the name reverted to Florence Ville
- The earliest settlers were Loyalists who had originally emigrated from Britain to New England in the 1630s and 1640s, but who moved as political refugees to the east coast of Canada in the 1780s
- Since 1957 Florenceville has been the home of McCain Foods Limited, one of the world's largest food-processing plants and parent company of the McCain Group with operations worldwide.
- Florenceville calls itself 'French Fry Capital of the World' and offers visitors the Andrew and Laura McCain Gallery of New Brunswick Visual Arts at 8 McCain St. and the New Brunswick Potato Museum at 385 Centerville Road.
- Florenceville Covered Bridge was built in 1907.
- They didn't invent it, but brothers Harrison and Wallace McCain of Florenceville made billions of dollars from the humble French fried potato.
- In the 1950s the brothers noticed that General Foods in neighbouring Maine was using New Brunswick potatoes to make frozen fries.
- In 1957, an eight-ounce bag of frozen fries sold for 39 cents and the average North American annual consumption was less than three pounds per person.
- Within 30 years, the average annual consumption of fries had risen to 11 pounds and McCain Foods had expanded from 30 employees and $ 152,000 in revenues to an international conglomerate with 16,000 employees in 13 countries, global sales of $6 Billion.
- And the product line had diversified from fries to frozen pizza, trucking, juices, fertilizers and appetizers.
- In the early 1990s the brothers became estranged after a bitter battle over who would succeed them as company CEO, but both were still rated by Forbes Magazine in 2001 as being among the 500 richest people on earth with net worths in excess of $1 billion
- With permission from 'New Brunswick Place Names' David E. Scott 2009
Address of this page: http://nb.ruralroutes.com/FlorencevilleBristol