St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1904-11-23

In your issue for October II, which
friend has brought to my notice, you
give interesting particulars concerning
St. John de Crevec9ur, for whom your
town was named by Ethan Allen and
the State legislature in 1877. He was
made citizen of Vermont, along with
his three children, Fanny, Ally. and
Louis. by an act OF March 10 1877, and in
a letter of April 4, the same year, written
from Bennington, Ethan Allen sent
him copy of the act, and informs ST.
John that district has just been incor-
porated by the name of De Vergennes-
burgh. (the present Vergennesl and that
two townships near Lake Menphrema-
cog have received the names of St. Johns
bury. and Danville. Allen adds that a
Vermont College is to be founded, for
which St. John has offered a seal, and AL
len thanks him for it. He desires advice
as to armorial bearings to be used on the
great seal of Vermont; and I have
heard that these were, in fact, furnished
by St. John, who was skillful draughts-
man and surveyor.
Your account of the godfather of your
of his book in New York, though valuable
in many respects, contains little of biogra-
phical interest which is accurately given.
He was not born in 1871, but January
81, 1875; he was not %, but 20 when he
became a naturalized citizen of New York !;
and if you know where his country seat
near New York, was, you know more
than his descendant and biographer,
Robert st. John de Crevecoe ur. did in 1888,
when he published his volume of 40
pages, which is the chief source of our
knowledge of dates and events in his life.
The 'Greycourt' farm was probably in
Sussex county, New Jersey his principal
farm in New York was called Pine Hill'
and was in Orange county, not very far
from the much larger farm of Col. Jesse
Woodruff, who in the Revolution was
sheriff of Orange. St. John was married
in 1869, and entered upon his Pine Hill
estate in 1910. It was his home until
April 10, 1779, when he left it to visit
France; but was imprisoned in New York
by the British, shipwrecked on the coast
of Ireland in October, 1880; passed over
to England from Dublin the next winter.
crossed from Dover to Ostend in August,
1871, and finally reached Pierrepont,
his fathers country seat in Normandy,
near Yer. about August 10, after an alb
sence of 81 years. But the first FIVE or
six years were spent in Canada Or among
the Indians, and he fought under Mont
calm against the colonies in the French
and Indian war. He appears in south
ern Pennsylvania about 1862; how he
got there or where his home then was,
nobody seems to know. The Quakers be-
friended him, but he did not long stay
among them. He was married to Mehit-
able Tippet, probably of a Huguenot
family, a t Westchester, N. Y, and he new
er bore the name of Hector except on tt
tle-page. Miscarriage certificate, signed
by French Calvinist pastor, calls him,
Michel uillaume Saint Jean de Creve-
occur, commonly called Mr.. Saint John,
a native of Normandy in Old France
His three children were all born at Pine
Hill, America-Frances (afterward the
Countess Otto) Dec. II, ITO, William
Alexander, August 5. 1872, and Philippe
Louis Oct. %, 1774. These citizens of
Vermont, in 1877, had therefore reached
the ages of 16, Is and -, when they
were naturalized; and Fanny and Louis
had been living in Boston, with Gusta-
vus Fel1owes, from December 1871 till
the spring of 1885, when Louis went
with his father to France. Fanny stayed
at school in Boston till the late spring of
to, German in the French diplomatic
service, in ST. Peters church, New York,
April 10, 1890, and was the mother of
the baroness Pellet de la Lozere, whose
husband lived until 1871.
st. John himself returned to France in
1890, was deprived of his consulship in
December 1892, and lived rather precari-
ously in France and Germany for some
years after. He produced second work
of three French volumes CA Journey in
OppCi GlC III 1OOI, WHICH
was translated into German and publish
ed at Berlin in 1902, with observations
by Dieterich Tiedemann. It was never
put into English, though much OF it was
originally written in that language
The St. Johnsbury Athenaum ought to
acquire. if possible, all his volumes, and
that of his great-grandson and biog-
rapher, Robert St. John. His portrait,
the only one known, appears in his biog-
raphy. In April 1886, ST. John. being in
Paris, wrote to his son Ally at Caen,
"Poree, my fathers valet, on his way to
Pierrepont, by way of Caen, will carry
you paper-box which contains a por-
trait of the kind Countess fHoudetot),
one of Fanny, of MIR. Fellows, and OF
your papa" OF these the first and last
survive, and are engraved in Robert St.
Johns life of his ancestor. They are pro-
file sketches in black chalk, finished in
TlaSfef On fha haoLyS +ba 4~,-~,o. -