Historical Timeline of the Huguenot-Anglican Refuge

Note: This is an unpublished supplement to Dr. Lee’s book, The Huguenot-Anglican Refuge in Virginia.

Detail: A New Map of Virginia, Maryland, and the improved parts of Pennsylvania, John Senex, 1719
Showing the area of Huguenot settlement in the counties along the Rappahannock River between 1687 and 1710.

Timeline

1661
Louis XIV begins active persecution of his Protestant subjects in France.

1662
Charles II assumes the throne of England and removes Puritans from English pulpits and teaching positions.

1677
John Bertrand, an ordained minister of the French Reformed Church, who grew up in Cozes, France, migrates to England where he is re-ordained into the ministry of the Church of England by Bishop of London Henry Compton.

1680
Henry Compton launches an Anglican reform program for colonial churches to reduce the power of vestries and dismantle Calvinist worship practices.

1685
Louis XIV outlaws Protestant worship in France and expels Huguenot ministers.

1685-1700
Approximately 200,000 Huguenots flee France for Protestant Europe, with 50,000 going to England.

1685-1700
Historians believe no more than 3,000 of the Huguenot refugees in England move on to English America, settling in New England, New York, and South Carolina, where independent Huguenot congregations are established.

1686
Virginia governor, Francis Howard, invites Huguenots to settle in Virginia bringing bilingual ministers with them to serve both the English and the French in a dual tract ministry according to a French language pamphlet published in The Hague in July.

1687
John Bertrand and scores of Huguenot refugees arrive in Rappahannock County, Virginia in the fall, apparently in response to the governor’s offer, with Bertrand performing a dual-track ministry at the North Farnham Anglican Church.

1688
William of Orange invades England to challenge the Catholic James II for the throne.

1689
William III and Mary II assume the English throne.

1690
John Bertrand begins serving the St. Mary’s Whitechapel Anglican Church in Lancaster County in addition to the North Farnham Church.

1692
John Bertrand is dismissed by the North Farnham vestry and replaced by a nonconformist minister as the parish resists Bishop Compton’s reforms.

1693
A long running lawsuit initiated by John Bertrand places his plantation at the center of the controversy over Virginia land grants made by the Northern Neck Proprietary.

1696
John Bertrand is once again serving North Farnham Parish.

1698
The authority of the Northern Neck Proprietary is confirmed in England enabling John Bertrand to substantially expand the size of his plantation.

1698
John Bertrand is forced out by the Whitechapel vestry and replaced by Andrew Jackson, the Presbyterian minister at Christ Church.

1700-1701
Five ships financed by William III bring additional Huguenot refugees to Virginia: some of them found the Manakin Community near the present-day town of Richmond while others join the Huguenots along the Rappahannock.

1701
French minister Lewis Latané, a passenger on one of William III’s ships, begins a dual-track ministry at South Farnham Parish in Essex County, Virginia in March.

1701
John Bertrand dies in August leaving the spiritual leadership of the Rappahannock Huguenots to Lewis Latané.

1710
Rappahannock Huguenot emigrant Paul Micou, a merchant and physician from Cozes, is appointed by the governor to serve as court justice for Essex County.

1716
The South Farnham vestry dismisses Lewis Latané and locks him out of his church, but is forced to rescind this action under pressure from the governor and Council.

1730
James Marye, a French Catholic priest who converted to Anglicanism, arrives in Virginia to serve in a dual tract ministry with Manakin Huguenots.

1733
Lewis Latané dies, leaving the Rappahannock Huguenots with no French-speaking minister.

1735
James Marye brings French language ministry to a Rappahannock parish near Fredericksburg as the grandchildren of the 1687 French emigrants are moving upriver.

1735-1760
The First Great Awakening challenges Virginia’s Anglican Church establishment as third and fourth generation Huguenot descendants are well assimilated Virginians. 

Seventeenth-Century Pipe Stem with Initials “JB”
Excavated Near the Plantation House of John and Charlotte Bertrand at Belle Isle State Park, Lancaster County, Virginia
William and Mary Center for Archeological Research, August 2020