French Azilum Historic Site
Towanda, United States of America
French Azilum (French: Asile français) was a planned settlement built in 1793 in Bradford County, Pennsylvania for French refugees fleeing the French Revolution and slave uprisings in Saint-Domingue. Several influential Philadelphians, including Stephen Girard, Robert Morris and John Nicholson, Penn
sylvania's comptroller general, were sympathetic to the exiles, and also saw a chance to profit financially. In 1793, they aided in the purchase of 1,600 acres (6 km2) of land in northeastern Pennsylvania, which was then wilderness. An area of 300 acres (1.2 km2) was laid out as a town plot including a 2-acre (8,100 m2) market square, a grid of broad streets and 413 lots, approximately one-half acre each. About 30 log houses were built. A small number of exiles arrived that fall. Some were royalists, loyal to King Louis XVI (guillotined in January 1793) and thus fleeing imprisonment and possible death during the French Revolution. Others came from the French colony of Saint-Domingue (Haiti) where slave uprisings had broken out in 1791, inspired by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789) of the French Assembly. According to legend, Marie Antoinette (continued as titular...
Listen to the audio guide for French Azilum Historic Site Free on WIP — starts by itself when you arrive, even with the screen offNearby
- Bradford County Courthouse monumenti · 11 km away