CHAPTEE X 

 FRENCH SETTLEMENT IN MAINE 



T 



The Dresden ^ ■ ->HE visitoF to tliG Forest GrovB Cemetery, in the 



Settlement ■ *' " 



village of Riclimoiid, ou the eastern bank of the 

 Kennebec, finds a reminder of the refugee set- 

 tlers in an inscription on a tombstone : "Louis Houde- 

 lette and Mary Cavalear, his Wife, French Huguenots." 

 The Maine historians, for the most part, have failed to 

 give credit to the French settlers, either affirming that 

 Dresden was settled by Germans, or passing lightly over 

 the French part of the record. But later researches have 

 shown that the founders of Dresden were nearly all 

 French, who had first fled to Germany after the Revoca- 

 tion, and had thence emigrated to the new world in com- 

 pany with a few German families. Dresden was settled 

 by these people in 1752, and in many instances the fami- 

 lies still retain the French names, with such changes as 

 time and new environment work in nomenclature. 

 Stephen Thcsc Frcuch Protestants belonged to the Lutheran 



Houdelette , 



branch of the Reformed Church, and came from the east- 

 ern provinces of France. Of the forty -six French and 

 German emigrants who left Frankfort in 1752, twenty- 

 eight French names are known and five German, so that 

 the colony was preponderantly French. Among the 

 more important of these families was that of Charles 

 Stephen Houdelette, the father of Louis. He was a lace 

 weaver, and represented the best type of the French 

 skilled artisan, and was equally prominent in the civil 

 and spiritual life of the little colony. Some of his de- 

 scendants still remain in Dresden, while others are scat- 

 tered throughout various parts of the country. Henry 



196 



