234 



THE FRENCH BLOOD IN AMERICA 



The 

 Lispenards 



rode up to the side of the donkey, and thrust his sword 

 into the nearest panier, exclaiming as he rode away, ' Bon 

 voyage, mes amis ! ' The agony of the parents may be 

 conceived, until the soldier was well out of sight, when 

 the panier was immediately opened, and one child was 

 found to have been pierced through the calf of his leg." 

 Another of the later arrivals was Margaret Lepperner, 

 who came with her two children, Anthony and Susanna. 

 Anthony became the founder of a well-known family, the 

 Lispenards ; Lepperner being merely a malformation of 

 the name due to the peculiar orthographic methods then 

 in vogue. A French diary in the possession of the 

 Lispenard family, dating back to the days before the 

 Revocation, contains many interesting and j)ious entries 

 of which the two following are fair examples : 



From a 

 Family Diary 



A Description 

 of the Place 

 1704 



" September 20th, 1671. — I have been married to Abel de Forge. I 

 beg the good Lord, that He gives us the grace to live a long time in 

 His holy fear, and that it will please Him to give us a good paradise 

 at the end." 



"Ooto])er 2d, 1672. — My wife has been confined of a girl Margaret, 

 at about ten o'clock of the day, on a "Wednesday. Margaret died, and 

 has given her spirit to God, between six and seven o'clock of the after- 

 noon." 



Ill 



From the pen of Madame Knight, who passed through 

 New Rochelle in the year 1704, comes the following brief 

 des("'ription of the village at that time: "On the 22d 

 of December we set out for New Rochelle, where being 

 come, we had good entertainment, and recruited ourselves 

 very well. This is a very pretty place, well compact, 

 and good, handsome houses, clean, good and passable 

 roads, and situated on a navigable river, abundance of 

 land, well fenced and cleared all along as we passed, which 

 caused in me a love to the place, which I could have 

 been content to live in it. Here we rid over a bridge 

 made of one entire stone, of such a breadth that a cart 

 might pass with safety, and to spare. It lay over a pas- 



