Articles published since the election of Paul LePage have stated that he will be the “second” Franco-American governor of Maine, and reported that Alonzo Garcelon (1813-1906) was the first.

In the interest of historical accuracy, Alonzo Garcelon (according to a family genealogy published on a respected genealogy website) was seven-eighths English and one-eighth French. One of Garcelon’s great-great grandfathers was a Protestant minister who was born in France and settled in England. All of the rest of his family tree is English.

Garcelon had nothing in common with Maine’s Franco-Americans, 99 percent of whom, like LePage, are descendants of Quebecois or Acadian French who emigrated from Canada to Maine.

Michael Poulin, Lewiston