Habitation Ceron is a former sugar factory built in the early days of colonization in 1685, located in the town of Prêcheur.
History
Le Prêcheur is a town on the northern tip of Martinique. It is located north of Saint-Pierre and west of Grand'Riviere.
The town owes its name to a rock which had the shape of a preacher in the pulpit. This rock unfortunately disappeared during the eruption of Mount Pelée.
Located near Saint-Pierre and Carbet, the first towns conquered by the colonists, the Prêcheur was one of the oldest parishes on the island. Indeed, it was set up as a parish in the 1640s, a church was built there in 1644. In this church will officiate Father du Tertre and Father Labat.
Note that this church had a bell offered by Louis XIV in 1712. After the eruption of Mount Pelée, only the bell tower of this church remains, the oldest in Martinique and is classified as a Historic Monument today.
The Indians who lived there were quickly driven from the area to the Atlantic area before being permanently driven from the island or exterminated.
The parish of Le Prêcheur is gradually inhabited and a sugar refinery was erected there in 1658.
It will be necessary to wait 40 years after the erection of the commune in parish to see a borough in the commune is in 1680.
In the 18th century, the church had to be rebuilt and technical difficulties made it impossible to build stone spiers above the choir of churches.
In the 18th and 19th century, despite the presence of a sugar factory, Le Prêcheur was a town where the two main activities were fishing and agriculture. The local production is then transported to Saint-Pierre which was then the capital of the island.
In 1902, the town of Le Prêcheur was hard hit. Several buildings are destroyed. The inhabitants leave the town for the towns in the center. It was not until the 1920s that the town regained its attractiveness.
In 1930, under the authority of Asthon Tardon, father of Manon Tardon and Raphaël Tardon, the church of Byzantine architecture and the town hall were rebuilt.
The city was gradually repopulated after the 1950s.
The city of the Prêcheur was the home of Françoise d'Aubigné, the Marquise de Maintenon who lived there from the age of 3 to 10 years. She will later be the wife of Louis XIV. According to legend, she kept a very strong attachment to the place of her childhood that she would have transmitted to her husband Louis XIV who then decides to intensify the cultivation of sugar cane on the island. She would have returned several times to the town that would have marked her.
Economy
As at its beginnings, the municipality of Prêcheur is mainly focused on fishing and agriculture. Little frequented by tourists due to its distance from their center of the island, however, it has many places to visit such as its beaches at Anse Céron, Anse Couleuvre, Habitation Céron, or the bell tower dating from 1644.
Hiking enthusiasts will enjoy walking the path in the middle of nature which connects the town of Grand'Rivière to that of Le Prêcheur with a length of 15 km.
Neighborhoods
The main districts of the municipality are Anse Belleville, Abymes, Bourg, Charmeuse and Pointe lamarre.
