On Daniel Bonnett's arrival in New Rochelle, he purchased land of Bartholomew le Roax, one of the first settlers. f'-

For some time, all the exertions the Huguenots conld make men, women and children united, were necessary to prepare the land for cultivation, and enable them to pay for its purchase, which their perseverance at last accomplished. Yet amid all the hardships and suffering incident to a laborious life, in an uncnltivated and strange country, they wrote to their friends in France,

a Alb. Book of Pat. vol. i.

t The artists and mechanics appear to have remained in the city, while the farmers moved into the country.

"^ This property is still occupied by his descendants.

392 HISTORY OF THE

expressing tbeir gratitude to Heaven for the advantages they enjoyed in this land of liberty.

That heart must be hard indeed that cannot appreciate the following pious ejaculations set forth in the last will of John Mashett, one of these suflerers for conscience sake.

Our help be in the name of God, which made the heavens and earth, Amen.

T, John Mashett, a ship carpenter, born and bred in ye town of Frambbad in France, and dwelling in Bordeaux, and being fugitive by the persecution, with my family, viz., Jeanne Thomas my wife, and Peter, John, Jeanne and Mary Anne Mashett, my children, sons and daughters, and having all abandoned and forsaken all my goods for my religion's sake, which I profess in the purity of a (christian commonly called Protestant, and being now established in these places, lands and dependencies of New York, in the town called New Rochelle, under the dominion of the high and mighty monarch, our king, William of plaine memory, to which God preserve his sceptre and crowne, and that under his reign we might live in God's fear, and being sick of body with a fever, notwithstanding sound of mind and memory, and willing to provide my business for the tranquility of my family, &c.