| 10. | Jean Pierre Le Grand  (3.Judith2, 1.Jean1) was born in June 1697 in La Haye (The Hague), Holland. Notes:
At one time, like other European famiilies, the Legrand family had been a devout Catholic family, but like thousands of other families had become Protestant in France, a Catholic country. When Luther and Calvin began spreading their teachings, the Roman Catholic church considered them to be heretical and thus began the persecution and inquisitions throughout Europe but particularly in Spain and France.
When Huguenot leaders gathered in Paris for the marriage of Margaret of Valois, sister of France's King Charles IX, to the Protestant Prince Henry of Navarre, the King's mother, Catherine de Medici, became unsettled. She promptly persuaded her son to have the Huguenot's leaders wiped out for she feared they would assassinate the king in order to have a Protestant monarch. The result was the Massacre of St. Bartholomew for it was on that day, 24th of August 1572, that the king's men murdered all Protestant leaders they found, and within a few days the Catholics had killed every Huguenot they could find in Paris. The slaughter then spread to the countryside where thousands more were murdered.
in 1589, Prince Henry, grandson of Margaret of Valois, became King Henry IV and converted to Catholicism "only to bring peace to my country." Henry IV is said to be the "only king remembered by the poor and is the most popular figure in Frence History." Not only was he good to the poor, but he remembered his Protestant upbringing and was responsible for what is now known as the Edict of Nantes, which as a guarantee to his Protestant subjects that they had freedom of religion. When, however, his grandson Louis XIV took the throne, the Edict of Nantes was revoked and once again the Protestants, most of whom were of the gentry or upper middle class, were victims of religious persecution, causing an immediate exodus.
The Huguenot ministers were ordered to leave the country at once, and anyone attending a Protestant meeting would be arrested; the women would be confined the rest of their lives while the men would serve forever as galley slaves.
Many Huguenots made their exits through southern France and dispersed to the Protestant countries. Huguenots had begun arriving in Virginia as early as 1610 and 1630 when Baron de Sance brought refugees to settle on the lower James River. In 1687, over 600 French Huguenots were transported from London, however it was the emigration of 1700 that brought the Legrand family with their friends and relatives to Virginia.
Only 3 years after the revocation of the Edict, Marquis Olivier De la Muce, a Breton nobleman, escaped from his French prison and sought refuge in England; within ten years he had mobilized and organized his fellow Frenchmen while getting a ten thousand acre grant in Virginia from King William II of England.
in 1699 KIng William II issued a brief for a collection on behalf of the Protestant refugees from which a sum of twelve thousand pounds was collected. From these monies disbursements were made, which the addition of six pounds per head for transportation made by Lord Chamberlain for the "French refugees to go to some of his majesties plantations."
Throughout the summer and fall of 1700, ships left Southampton, England for the New World with passengers leaving to build a new community for themselves in a New World where they could have freedom of worship. Among the refugees were four ministers and two doctors along with other well-educated French Protestants.
They came on small ships, easily wind-blown, sailing at least three or four months on a sometimes raging sea. Their charts were imperfect; the port had no lighthouse or pilot.
The first ship, the MARIEANN (French), arrived at the mouth of James River on 24 July 1700. The passengers had not had an easy voyage. They were given a weekly food allowance each Monday:
"Every passenger above the age of six years to have seven pounds of bread every week...and to have two pieces of porke, at two pounds each peece, five days in a week, with pease; and two days a week to have four pound peeches of beefe a day, a pease...or in bad weather....one pound of cheese."
The cabins held hammocks for beds and two passengers per cabin. The ship carried brandy, sugar, figs, raisins and "sugar biscuits for the sick," along with garden seeds, tools, firearms and nets for the new settlement. People on the MARY and ANN (in English) complained that Captain Hawes "abused them and their goods"; the treatment they received from their captain parallels that of the Mayflower Pilgrims from their captain. They ship captains in general had little respect for emigrants even though they were the captains' livelihood.
Less than two months after the MARY and ANN, the ship PETER and ANTHONY, came on the 20th of September 1700, bringing another group of Huguenots, including Pierre Legrand family who where listed in the log as "Pierre LeGrand, sa femme, et cing. enfans." (Pierre LeGrand with wife and five children). Amonh this group of 169 refugees was their Huguenot minister, Monsieur Benjamin de Joux, who had been ordained by the Anglican Bishop of London as the minister of all Huguenots. Unfortunately, de Joux died before April 1704.
These French immigrants had not been used to an inferior station in life and were unwilling to accept an inferior position in the New World. They immediately wrote the governor asking that Marquis de Sailly-Salle be forced to render an account of the monies received for them from both England and Virginia, and that money be appropriated to build a church for the Rev. de Joux.
This group decided not to settle with the first group at Manakin, but settle a few miles from the others, taking up land between Manakin Town and Powhite Creek along the James River.
By 1704 each Huguenot had been naturalized and each male Huguenot had been granted 133 acres of land.
Pierre died within the first 10 years, but no death date has been found, however he had definitely died prior to 1710 since no Legrand name had been entered on the tithable list of King William Parish prior to 1714 even through the first tithable list was begun 1710. Undoubtedly Pierre was one of the unfortunate ones who had been weakened by the voyage and could not rebuild his health while trying to clear a wilderness to build a home for his family. "He had not lived long enough to finalize a claim." Whatever malady caused Pierre's death may have taken some of his children at the same time. Daniel was on his brother's headright list, so it is evident that he was on the ship and died before coming of age as did Pierre Jr. and possibly about the same time as their father Pierre Sr. died. Anne, the eldest child and Isaac must have died young in Holland for had they been on the ship the infant count would have been 7 not 5.
Only a few years after immigrant Pierre-Peter's deth, son James died, leaving a will for the 365 acres he owned outside the French lands and in today's Chesterfield County. The land was a posthumously-awarded patent, a patent that the immigrant Pierre Sr. did not live to claim.
In 1700, more than ten thousand acres, including Manakin Town, which became part of King William Parish, was given to the French immigrants. The land was located on the south side of the James River near today's Richmond, which at that time was in Henrico County. The land was given in two sections of 5000 acres each and the second half was usually referred to as the "New Land." (text taken from Billie Redding Lewis research)
Birth:
Went by Peter after his brother Peter died, dropping his first name.
Jean married Jane Magdelen Michaux in 1720 in Virginia, United States. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]
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