Day 4 French Revolution

As peasant unrest grew in France in the late 1780s and early 1790s, many members of the Aristocracy were forced to flee. At the same time, slave uprisings in the French Colony of Santo Domingo (now known as Haiti), caused the elite class there to also seek refuge. While many of these wealthy expatriates moved to Austria, Russia or Britain, a small band emigrated to America and settled between Wysox and Wyalusing. There, in a horseshoe bend of the Susquehanna River, French Azilum was born.

You are here

You are down there some-where

As peasant unrest grew in France in the late 1780s and early 1790s, many members of the Aristocracy were forced to flee. At the same time, slave uprisings in the French Colony of Santo Domingo (now known as Haiti), caused the elite class there to also seek refuge. While many of these wealthy expatriates moved to Austria, Russia or Britain, a small band emigrated to America and settled between Wysox and Wyalusing. There, in a horseshoe bend of the Susquehanna River, French Azilum was born.

The settlers soon created a village of their own, complete with a chapel, schoolhouse and market square. Thirty small log homes were built, including "La Grande Maison," a two-story log structure that served as the scene of social gatherings and hosted visits by honored guests. It was said that La Grande Maison was to serve as the home of Marie Antoinette and her two children, but unfortunately that objective was never fulfilled.

Marie Antoinette on the Way to the Guillotine, by Jacques-Louis David 1793