FOREW ORD 



THE purpose of this work is to trace the pres- 

 ence and influence of the French Protestant 

 blood in America, and to show how imi^ortant a 

 part it has had in the making of our Republic. In re- 

 cent times no little attention has been given to the sub- 

 ject of the Huguenots in America and their descendants. 

 Credit for this is due chiefly to Dr. Henry M. Baird, 

 whose history of the Huguenots is an authority on both 

 sides of the Atlantic. His exhaustive work deals with 

 France for the most part ; and his brother, Dr. Charles 

 W. Baird, has undertaken to write in detail that part of 

 the history which belongs to America. His task has not 

 been completed, and his work is too elaborate and in- 

 volved to secure general reading. Various local mono- 

 graphs have been published, giving the history of some 

 settlement or famous family, and a number of romances 

 have dealt with the theme. But there is no single vol- 

 ume which presents readably a comprehensive view of 

 the Huguenots in France and their descendants in this 

 country ; which reveals and estimates at its true value 

 the Huguenot influence as a factor in American religious, 

 social, and commercial life. 



The story of the courageous men and women who, for 

 the sake of conscience and religious liberty, endured per- 

 secution and exile, and found graves or made for them- 

 selves homes in the New World, forms one of the most 

 pathetic and at the same time fascinating and inspiring 

 chapters of human experience. Inspiring, because in 

 these trying experiences there was exhibited a nobility of 

 character, a strength of soul, a superb quality of manhood 

 and womanhood, that lends new dignity to human nature. 

 Of this record every descendant of the Huguenots may 



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