11 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



LeConte, of Coutances, who, in 1687, at the age of sixty, was sentenced 

 to the galleys because a book " of the religion" was found in his house ; 

 and of Daniel LeConte, of Poitou, sent to the galleys the following year 

 for the crime of being a Huguenot; of Abraham and Henry LeConte, 

 who fled to England in 1687 for conscience and life's sake ; and of Guil- 

 laume and Pierre LeConte, besides others of the same name, who took 

 refuge in oiir country. 



Gruillaume, with whom we are specially concerned, was born at Rouen, 

 March 6, 1659. His exact ancestry is unknown, but from seals still in 

 the possession of the family, it seems tolerably evident, to judge from 

 the researches of Dr. LeConte, that he was descended, through his 

 mother or grandmother, from the barons of Nonant, a Norman family of 

 importance, and that he or his, father adopted the name of the maternal 

 line.* In the troubles which arose in his early manhood Guillaume, 

 finding that neither justice nor liberty would be allowed him in his native 

 country, fled to Holland and cast in his fortunes with the Prince of 

 Orange. " At the time of his arrival in Holland," writes Major LeConte 

 in a manuscript at hand, " William, the stadtholder, was preparing to 

 invade England, and readily accepted the offer of my ancestor's service 

 in his army. With him he proceeded to England," and apparently re- 

 mained in his army until it was disbanded after the peace of Ryswick, 

 for we find him with that army at the conquest of Ireland, and the family 

 still retain a fine folio Elzevir Bible of 1669, presented to Guillaume by 

 William III, in token of his friendship. Moreover it was in the year 

 following the peace of Ryswick, namely in 1698, that Guillaume emi- 

 grated to this country with two nephews, Thomas and Henri, of the 

 Nonant line. These two nephews, it may be said in passing, married in 

 this country, but left no children. 



Shortly after his arrival in New York he made a voyage to the West 

 Indies,"!" where he met and married, Feb. 16, 1701, -Margueritte de Val- 



* Dr. LeConte, in a letter to Rev. C. W. Baird, says: "The tradition in my 

 family is that my ancestor was so disgusted with the political conditions of France 

 that when he went to Holland he dropped his father's and took his mother's name. 

 . . . The LeConte seal is quartered at the lower right hand corner, and indicates 

 a female of the family of that name of the seigneurs of Nonant, Bretoncelles, etc." 

 But it is not known, I helieve, that any Huguenots changed their name for the 

 cause here assigned, and it seems more probable that the change was made by him- 

 self or an ancestor for some purely family reason. 



•f '• No evidence has been recorded to show that Guillaume ever went to Mar- 

 tinique; it is much more probable that Marguerite had come with her father to 

 New Rochelle, but continued to refer her home to the island from which they had 



