Florenceville, New Brunswick

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The Florenceville Bridge across the Saint John River is partly-covered.

The village of Florenceville is located on the banks of the St. John River, in Carleton County in the Canadian province of New Brunswick.

Florenceville was originally known as Buttermilk Creek. In 1855 it was renamed Florenceville to honour Florence Nightingale, the famous Crimean War nurse. Florenceville was on the west side of the St. John River and there the first post office and commercial section of the village was situated. In later years East Florenceville became the commercial centre with three grocery stores and several other small businesses.

Both villages had schools offering grades 1 through 12 until 1956 when the Florenceville Regional High School was opened accommodating grades 7 through 12. The original schools became the elementary schools. Eventually these were replaced by on elementary school on the east side of the river. The Regional High School became a middle school when Carleton North High School was built in Bristol, NB.

The village has a population of less than 800 people, but is the world headquarters for McCain Foods Limited, the largest producer of french fries in the world.

It also boasts a free public art gallery. The Andrew and Laura McCain Gallery is a non-profit, community supported gallery that shows about nine exhibitions a year of everything from exhibitions on loan from the National Gallery of Canada to the work of local school children.