PAET THEEE 



PENNSYLVANIA AND THE SOUTHERN 

 STATES 



CHAPTEE I 



PENNSYLVANIA AND DELAWAEE 



First AVhite 



Settlers 



Huguenots 



Probably as 

 Early as 1625 



Perm's Grant 

 1681 



S 



EVEN years before the building of Fort Nassau on 

 a branch of the Delaware Eiver and the granting 

 of patents to Godyn and his colleagues, a small 

 trading station was erected on an island (now almost en- 

 tirely washed away) in the Delaware a short distance be- 

 low the present town of Trenton Falls. The hardy settlers 

 who undertook the labour of establishing this station in 

 the wilderness, and who thus isolated themselves from all 

 contact with civilization, were members of the band of 

 refugees, collected by Jesse de Forest, which reached 

 New York in the spring of 1623. Although the attempt 

 was an abortive one and had to be abandoned a few years 

 later, nevertheless the four young couples who made up 

 the garrison of the trading station are entitled to recogni- 

 tion as the first white settlers of Pennsylvania. Unless 

 new facts come into the light of history, we may safely 

 say that the first homes which were built in that com- 

 monwealth which has proved such an asylum for the 

 persecuted, were erected by the most bitterly persecuted 

 of all European people, the Huguenots. 



Prior to the grant to William Penn in 1681, the region 

 now known as Pennsylvania, and which then included the 

 state of Delaware, contained many French refugees among 

 its inhabitants. The names of most of these settlers have 



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