Autobiography and Biography of Rev. Joseph Caldwell, D.D., L.L.D.

THE Edict of Nantes was revoked by Louis XIV about the year 1684. The well known consequence was that 500,000 French Protestants left their country to look after settlements among other nations, and in other parts of the world, where they might enjoy the rights of conscience, and the same immunities and prospects for themselves and their families as were common to other subjects or citizens of the governments under which they should live. One of these emigrant families was that of Lovel. They first passed from France into England, and continued there for some time, in the exercise of manufacturing skill. At that period, the colonies of America, now known as the United States, were fast filling up from different parts of the British empire, and Europe. The head of this Lovel family did not continue very long in the vicinage of London, before he concluded to transplant himself with such capital as he possessed, which, it would seem, was not insignificant, to a spot which he selected on Long Island, towards it western extremity, and not far from Hempsted Plains, and near Oyster Bay. Here he purchased an extensive farm. The land was of good quality, and being faithfully cultivated, yielded annually an abundance for the necessaries and comforts, and all that was desired beyond these for the enjoyments and respectability of people who classed with the substantial mediocrity of the country. With what total abstraction and absorbing interest did my good old grandmother, when I was a boy of twelve, sit and pass in review through the details of her early years, while she was growing up under the fostering guidance of her venerable parent. He was, it would seem, of mellowed affections and patriarchal habits. I shall give a specimen of one of these conversations: