Find out who Jos. B Michaud was and the path traveled by this historic establishment!
Before we start... some music?
The story of Jos B. Michaud and
his father Jean-Baptiste Michaud
Jean-Baptiste arrived in Saint-François-de-Madawaska in 1886 and in 1894, he built the forge shop and worked there for about forty years until his son Joseph took over.
Born in 1900, son of Jean-Baptiste Michaud and Edith Dionne, young Joseph watched over his father when he worked and was eager to follow in his ancestors’ footsteps. Jos was the fourth generation to become a blacksmith. In 1921, at the age of 21, he joined his father in the blacksmithing trade and later succeeded him.
In the 1930’s and 1940’s, Mr. Jos would shoe horses for the parishes of Connors, Clair and Saint-François-de-Madawaska. During those same years, Mr. Jos remembers that there were approximately 339 horses to be shod in those three parishes. He could shoe twenty to thirty horses a day. The busiest times were during the seeding season and as winter approached when the horses had to be shod with ice shoes.
In 1961, a fire destroyed the wood shop. A disheartened Mr. Jos wanted to take all his tools outside, but the parish priest told him not to move, claiming the fire would stop because of the snow on the roof of the forge.
In 1985, the forge was entirely renovated, all the items were cleaned, classified and identified. In August of the same year, the municipality of Saint-François-de-Madawaska (now the Communauté de Haut-Madawaska) decided to purchase the forge and named it the Jos B. Michaud Forge Museum/Workshop in his honour.
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Forge address
2056 Commercial Street, Saint-Francois,
New Brunswick, E7A 1B3
Phone
Office - (506) 992-5585
Opening time
Monday to Friday - 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday - 1pmat 15h
From July 1 to August 31
Realization and design by PNG COMMUNICATIONS
© 2023 Forge Jos B. Michaud