FRANCE
If you have French relatives, you might wish to research your family among some of France’s most illustrious and notable characters, viz:
Paul Revere, Peter Faneuil, and James Bowdoin of Massachusetts.
John Jay, Nicholas Bayard, and Stephen DeLancey of New York.
Elias Boudinot of New Jersey.
Henry Laurens and Francis Marion of South Carolina.
It is common knowledge that a few French refugees fled to America after the Edict of Nantes in 1685. However, most French Protestants settled their families in England and the Netherlands.
Skilled artisans and successful merchants settled in Boston, Charleston, New York, and other commercial centers. They established trading posts along a strategic circle of forts reaching from Arcadia, up the St. Lawrence River in Canada, around the Great Lakes, and down the valley of the Mississippi, with outposts on the Ohio River.
After the final struggle between France and Great Britain, when France left the North American continent, she left England all of her possessions east of the Mississippi River, except for several islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the West Indies. And to Spain, she ceded New Orleans and her vast claims beyond the great river. Also, the French Revolution of 1789 to 1799 drove many notable Frenchmen into exile in the United States.
By 1790, French adventurers from Havre, Bordeaux, Nantes, La Rochelle, and other French cities had settled in Gallipolis, Ohio.
Then the Scioto Land Company brought in new settlers, expecting to capitalize on the plan even though they did not own the land! Certain of these settlers could build coaches, make perukes, and gild with exquisite carving. Finally, in 1795, Congress granted the French refugees twenty-four thousand acres of land in Ohio. The first refugees never realized their early dreams, yet after a bitter struggle, they survived the log cabin days.
Most French who came to America after 1820 were factory workers and professionals who remained in cities along the Mississippi River. Their old-world aroma and quaint towns were known as Kaskaskia, Prairie du Rocher, Cahokia, etc.
Source: Our Foreigners: A Chronicle of Americans in the Making by Samuel Peter Orth.
The French on the Ashley River in South Carolina
The French emigrants to Charleston, South Carolina, were attracted to three principal points--the headwaters of Ashley River, the Cooper River, French Quarter Creek, and Jamestown.
In 1562, Admiral Coligny, a zealous Huguenot, founded an asylum for French protestants in America and established a settlement under the direction of John Ribault somewhere on the coast of Carolina, most probably on or near the island of St. Helena. These French settlers, not well supported, became discontented. After that, the whole lot of them put out to sea, with few provisions. Pinched with hunger, they killed one of their number, who consented to be made a victim to save his comrades. The survivors were taken on board an English ship and transported to England.
Two years later, M. Rene Laudonniere (loo-di-nere), with a considerable reinforcement, arrived from the river of Moy in Ireland. This second group of French Protestants was killed by Pedro Melendez, a Spanish officer, who had received orders from his King to drive the Huguenots out of the country. Melendez hung several of the French settlers. Afterward, the Spanish conquerors took over the area and fortified it.
During the seventeenth century, South Carolina once again became a refuge for French protestants. They came from France, after a short residence in northern Europe. Some went to New York, while others went to Carolina, as the climate was more similar to the one they left.
English settlers who arrived in 1670 were: Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, General Andrew Pickens, Colonel Robert Anderson, Captain Robert Maxwell, John Bowen, Major John Ford, John Hallum, William Johnson, John Lewis Gervais, Ralph Atmar, George Bampfield, Lewis Newhouse, John James Himely, Edward Trescott, James Bentham, Moses Tomlin, William Moultrie, George Ringland, Jacob Drayton, and others.
In 1696, a small group of inhabitants arrived from the Congregational Church in Dorchester in Massachusetts. These emigrants, along with their minister, the Rev. Joseph Lord, settled in a body of land near the head of Ashley River, about twenty-two miles from Charlestown.No considerable groups of settlers are known to have emigrated to South Carolina between 1696 and 1730.
Source: History of South Carolina, Heritage Series No. 3, by David Ramsay, M. D.
Genealogy Tips:
The earliest records in Charleston were posted in 1671 and included the deeds, wills, and estates of Edward Roberts, Henry Woodward, Mary Pierre Bertrand, and William Sayle.
Collections of georgiapioneers.com
1. History of South Carolina to the close of Proprietary Government
(Charleston County Records)
1. Wills, Appraisements, Inventories, Guardianships, Deeds 1671-1845
2. A List of Origin Families to Charleston
3. A List of Early Settlers to South Carolina
4. Deaths in the South Carolina Gazette 1732-1775 and 1766-1774
5. Marriage Settlements 1775-1834 (a rare discovery)
6. South Carolina Land Warrants 1672-1711
7. Charleston Wills 1671-1845
8. Charleston Estates, Inventories, Guardianships, Deeds
9. History of South Carolina at Close of Proprietary Government
French in Tennessee
Some German names in Sullivan County, Tennessee: Netherland (Niederlaner), Loudermilk (Lautermilch), Bachman (Bachman, German and Swiss-German), Buckellen, Baugh, Beachboard, Torbitt, and Pemberton. Memphis was laid off in 1819 at a point where it is supposed that De Soto reached the Mississippi in 1541; where La Salle built Fort Prud'homme in 1678; where the French built Fort Assumption in 1739; where the Spanish Governor, Gayoso, built Fort Ferdinand in 1795, and in 1797 when Captain Isaac Guion built Fort Adams. It was partly upon lands that had been preempted by the North Carolina State Government as early as 1783.