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Immigration Notes:
Prior to this date in 1707 Queen Anne of England had issued a proclamation inviting the suffering Huguenots to come to England. However, the Ferree's had heard of Pennsylvania in America, and desiring to go there began to make plans to cross the Atlantic.
Consent for them to leave the country was granted by the following paper: "Whereas Marie, Daniel Ferree's widow, and her son Daniel Ferree with his wife, and other single children, in view of improving their condition and in furtherance of their prosperity, propose to emigrate from Steinweiler in the Mayoralty of Bittingheim, High Bailiwick, Gersheim, via Holland and England, to the island of Pennsylvania to reside there, they have requested an accredited certificate that they left the town of Steinweiler with the knowledge of the proper authorities and have deported themselves peaceably and without cause for censure, and are indebted to no one, and not subject to vassalage, being duly solicited, it has been thought proper to grant their petition declaring that the above named persons are not moving away clandestinely, that during the time their father, the widow and children resided in this place, they behaved themselves piously and honestly, that it would have been highly gratifying to us to see them remain among us, that they are not subject to bodily bondage, they mayoralty not being subject to vassalage -- they have also paid for their permission to emigrate; Mr. Fischer, the Mayor of Steinweiler being expressly interrogated, it has been ascertained that they are not liable for any debts.
In witness thereof, I have, in the absence of the counsellor of the Palatinate, etc., signed these presents, gave the same to the persons who intended to emigrate. Dated Bittingheim, March 10, 1708." (L.S.) J. P. Dietrich, "Court Clerk."From an old record belonging to Mrs. Minnie F. Foulk of Gap, PA., a descendant of Philip Ferree. See also "Memorials of the Huguenots" by A. Stapleton, and "Rupp's History.")
From a lecture given 1917 in Paradise Pennsylvania by Judge Charles Landis, we learn that Madame Ferree and her children were in London by May 6, 1709.
Huguenots Notes:
50,000 who fled from France in the 17th century, to escape the rack and wheel of a persecution for conscience-sake, to which no parallel is found in history. The Edict of Nantes had promised them safety; and though they were for a time apparently restored to that liberty which they so deeply prized, yet their grievances at length became insupportable, and they were compelled to fly for their safety-some repairing to Switzerland, others to Germany-to Holland and to England. The eyes of many of these sufferers were soon turned towards the New World. They looked here for rest from strife and persecution-for a land where they might live according to the dictates of temperance and virtue; and worship their Creator as they thought appropriate. Many of these exiles settled in the values or Ulster.
The term "Huguenot" was first applied to the Protestants in France by way of derision, and had its rise in 1560. According to some authors, the term had its origin from a Gate in the city of Taurs, called the Gate of Fourgon, by corruption from feu Heugon, i.e. the late Hugon. This Hugon was a count of Taurs, very wicked, fierce and cruel, insomuch that his ghost returned and beat and abused all he met. Others say it was applied to the Protestants because they met to worship in subterraneous vaults near the Gate of Hugon. They were first called so at the city of Taurs.- Others derive it from the circumstance that they were friendly to keeping the line of Hugh Capet on the throne. Others still derive it from a French pronunciation of the German word edignossen, signifying confederates. These confederates were called Eignots, whence Huguenots.
Trip to America and Settlement:
After leaving the town of Steinweiler, the Daniel Ferree and Isaac LeFevre families went on to London. We assume Madame Ferree and her four single children remained in Holland at this time. Daniel and Isaac joined a group of refugees led by the Rev. Joshua Kocherthal whose expenses were paid by Queen Anne. According to the Reformed Church Messenger dated March 13, 1872, they set sail October 15, 1708, on the transport "Globe." This fleet of ships encountered some very bad weather. Lord Lovelace, the new Governor of New York, was on one of them. He wrote London immediately, advising them not to send any more ships after August. He said the "Globe" was in need of water but they were unable to help because of the stormy weather. After eleven weeks on the water, the "Globe" arrived in New York January 1, 1709.
The first settlement along the Hudson was made in the town of Newburgh on the German patent, near the site of the village of Newburgh, by emigrants from Germany, who had procured a patent from Queen Anne in 1719, for 2,190 acres at a place on the Hudson then called Quassaic, and came and made a location. These Germans just made a settlement, laid out the outlines of a village called Newburgh. Each family was given tools and 50 acres of land. Newburgh history tells of short supplies, different religious views, and their dislike of the land. A number of them left the area and settled elsewhere. ("The History of Orange County, New York" by Ruttenbur and Clark.)
Some of them went up the river to Albany and others to New Jersey, and other settlers took their places; but who they were, where from, or at what time this transaction happened, we are not well informed of. While the Dutch held the province of New York the emigration was slow, but after it passed into the possession of the English in 1664, it became more rapid and numerous, and chiefly from England. The early settlers in Newburgh, after the Germans left, were a mixture from England and Ireland, with some Dutch of Huguenot descent, whom at this day it is not easy to assort and assign their proper places in the work of populating the town. Daniel Ferree and Isaac LeFevre took their families to New Paltz, about 15 miles north of Newburgh, where four of Isaac's cousins were living. They were the children of his Uncle Simon LeFevre who, with his unmarried brother Andrew, had come to America in the 1660's. Simon's descendants are the New York State LeFevres. (From "Memorials of the Huguenots" by A. Stapleton.)
Notes 1685:
After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV in 1685, half a million French Huguenots left the country. The Ferree’s (La Verree) were of the nobility of France, and orginally seated at Forchamps, in Lower Normandy. France then controlled this territory east as far as the Rhine. The founder of the family was Robert Ferree, who in A.D. 1265 was confirmed to an extensive estate. (See "Nobility of Normandy." Vol. 11, p. 357, Stapleton, p. 100-108.) "He (Daniel Ferree) and his family had come under the heel of the French government because he was a professing Huguenot, a despised Protestant in that Roman Catholic committed country. Instead of merely killing them as the Roman Catholic soldiers had done to the parents of Isaac LeFevre, his three brothers and three sisters in October 1685, Isaac alone escaping with Daniel’s family. Isaac, then a boy of sixteen, took with him his father's Bible, which his mother had concealed by baking it in a loaf of bread. This Bible he clung to and cherished during all his journeys and hardships for sixty-six years. It is believed they dragooned the Ferrees, sending a large band of perhaps 20 soldiers to live in their home. Usually under such circumstances the homes were upset, furniture broken, women desecrated, food taken or everything destoryed--all in an effort to force the Huguenots to give up their Portestant religion and return to the Roman Catholic church. The Ferrees chose not to obey the soldiers. Instead they departed under cover of night, leaving all their possessions behind and fleeing for their lives to depart their native country." They later fled on into Bavaria in Germany, taking with them Isaac, and while living there Isaac and Catherine were married. Later they moved to Steinweiler near the Rhine River where the senior Daniel Ferree died. At this time his widow assumed her maiden name as an additional means of safety. An additional note, the Ferree's (De La Feuhre) La Verree were members of the lesser nobility since 1255. From Early History of LeFevre and Ferree Families.
Notes August 1708:
"Upon their arrival in London, Madame Ferree visited William Penn in person, to whom she made known her situation. Penn became deeply interested in the sad story of her misfortunes, and the next day introduced her to Queen Anne the Sovereign of England. The good Queen promised her substantial aid which she in due time rendered. William Penn consented to give her a tract of land, which she obtained upon her settlement in Pennsylvania.
"The party remained in London for about six months during which time the colony of Rev. Joshua Kocherthal was organized, composed of French and Palatinate refugees from Bavaria. This party which the Ferree's and the LeFevre's joined, obtained from the Queen a patent of naturalization and permission to colonize in America. This instrument, which is dated Aug. 27, 1708, contains the names of fifty-four persons, most of whom came to Pennsylvania some years later." (The ship's register shows only twenty-five sailed at this time.) (From "Memorials of the Huguenots" by A. Stapleton.)
Daniel Ferree, Jr., and Isaac LeFevre were already heads of families when in 1708 Madame Ferree's entire family joined the party of the Rev. Joshua Kocherthal in the proposed emigration to America.
It is recorded in the Pennsylvania archives that Penn secured 2000 acres of land for Madame Ferree. (Stapleton)
Notes October 1708:
Marie and her children traveled on the ship "Globe" to America via England to escape French persecution of Huguenots. The ship they came to America on set sail October 15, 1708, and arrived in New York December 31, 1708. Isaac LeFevre and his wife Catherine (Ferree) and their son Abraham, who was two years old also came on the same ship.
Notes Property 1712:
William Penn's Commissioners granted and confirmed to Daniel Ferree and Isaac LeFevre 2000 acres of land for 150 pounds, in what was then Chester County, Pa. (Lancaster County was not organized until the year of 1729.) -- Rupp's History.
According to the above record the land was deeded to Daniel and Isaac, and not to Madame Ferree. They arrived at their destination late one summer afternoon. After all their trials and travels, it looked so good to them that they called the place "Paradise," and so the town and the township remains to this day.
From an unknown early writer we have the following: "It was on the evening of a summer day when the Huguenots reached the verge of a hill commanding the view of the valley of the Pequea. It was a woodland scene, a forest inhabited by wild beasts, for no indication of civilized life was very near. Scattered along the Pequea among the dark green hazel inhabited by wild beast could be discerned the Indian wigwams, and the smoke coming therefrom. "Suddenly a number of Indians darted from the woods. The females shrieked when an Indian advanced and in broken English said to Madame Ferree, 'Indian no harm white; white good to Indian; go to our Chief; come to Beaver.' Few were the words of the Indian. They went with him to Beaver Cabin, and Beaver, with the humanity which distinguishes the Indian of that period, gave to the emigrants his wigwam.
"The next day Beaver introduced them to Tawana, who lived on the great flats of Pequea and was a chief of a band of Conestoga Indians who occupied this region." -- A. Stapleton.
The above mentioned Tawana was one of the Chiefs who signed the famous treaty made by William Penn at Shackamaxon on Nov. 4, 1682. His remains rest in the burying ground used by the Episcopal Church in Paradise, Pa.
The 2000 acre tract was later found to contain 2300 acres. Its western boundary was near to where U.S. 30 crosses the Pequea Creek and included the area now known as Gordonville, Paradise and Leaman Place, and extended southward to the Strasburg-Gap Road. It was about 1 1/3 miles wide, its northern and southern boundaries running east and west; and almost 3 miles long, its eastern and western boundaries running slightly north-west and south-east. The tract was divided among the Ferree Children. Isaac LeFevre's share was 383 1/3 acres near the center and extended the entire width of the tract.
Notes Spring 1712:
After their arrival in new York the Ferree-LeFevre party proceeded to Esopus (now Kingston, N.Y.), about ninety miles up the Hudson River, where they remained several years with Huguenot friends who had come to America some forty years before.
In the spring of 1712 they left Esopus and traveled overland to Philadelphia, where Madame Ferree presented her letters of introduction and recommendation from William Penn to his agents. Madame Ferree's tract consisting of 2000 acres was located along Pequea creek about fifty-five miles west of Philadelphia. It was a part of the ten thousand acres granted by William Penn to a Martin Kindig and other agents of the Mennonite colony. This land had been surveyed in October 1710 and was subdivided in April 1711. ("Memorials of the Huguenots" by A. Stapleton.)
More Notes:
First riflemaker in America, an Ulster Huguenot prominent among the Hugenots of France. Prior to the revocation of the Edit of Nantes 1685, were the Le Fevre and Ferree families, who upon revocation fled thence to Palinate of Bavaria. They were met almost upon the eve of their arrival by the Germersheim Succession War, and in Lindau eight memeber os the Le Fevre Family were massacred. Isaac, the only survior fled with the family of Daniel Ferree to the village of Steinweiler in the vicinity of the Black Forest, close to the border of the Grand Duchy of Baden. In less than two years thereafter Daniel Ferree died, leaving a widow and six children, the youngest, Phillip, an infant. In this strange country they remained for 23 years.
In 1704 Isaac Le Fevre married Catherine the daughter of the widow (Warenbuer) Ferree, and in 1708 the entire family emigrated to America on the ship “Transport Globe”, arriving at the port of New York December 31, 1708. They went to the Huguenot colony at Esopus, New York (now Kingston) and in the fall of 1712, with other Huguenots of this colony emigrated to Pennsylvania and settled a colony in Pequa Valley (now Lancaster County). Prior to leaving New York on March 16, 1710 was born in Esopus Philip Le Fevre (the gunsmith of the Pennsylvania Huguenot colony). A grant of 10,000 acres of province of Pennsylvania from William Penn, was made to the Palatinates, as the Huguenots were called. Besides a grant of 2000 acres from William Penn and Queen Anne, Isaac Le Fevre (Son of Isaac) made guns or rifles from 1731 to 1766.
The French Hugenot colony was almost forgotten, having conformed to the Germans, after the manner of the Esopus French Huguenot colony which became known and distirnguised as the Dutch of Holland Colony. Other members of this family not engaged in making guns or rifles erected gunpowder mills and manufactured gunpowder. The Ferree and Le Fevre families of french gunsmiths formed settlements in Kentucky, North Carolina, and into Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. The gunsmith bench and tools have long since been deserted by the Le Fevre family for that of judge. No other tool then the pen exists to remind them of those used by their skillful ancestors.
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