A large portion of the Coutant farm, which originally consisted of 307 acres, is now occupied by Philemon Carpenter and Thomas L. Servoss. The present Coutant residence was erected in 1769, and the cemetery in 1775. The latter contains a monument to John Le Fevre, a native of France besides others. , -

1j John Parcott was one of the original Huguenots of this place.

c The name of Elias Badeau occurs in a list of freeholders belonging to this town, in 1708.

d For Daniel Bennett, the ancestor of this family, see passport.

e This family trace their descent from John Soulice, a native of the French Pyrenees, living in 1672.

f The ancestor of this family was Ambroise Secor or Sycard.

s Frederick Scurman was a freeholder of this town, in 1708. '

h The name of Jaques Flandreau is attached to the list of church members in 1743.

Vol. I. > . 56 -- ,

442 • HISTORY OF THE

Two years after this he obtained a place in the excise, from which he was twice expelled for mal-praclices. In 1771 he married liis second wife, Elizabeth Ollive, from whom, in three years he obtained a divorce. In 1774 he composed his first production an election song, for which he obtained three guineas. The great Franklin found him a garret writer in London, and was the first person who advised him to come to this country. In Philadelphia, under the auspices of such men as Rush, Franklin, and others, he prepared and published his '• Common Sense," a work which appears to have been well-timed, and calculated to rouse the enthusiasm of the brave asserters of independence. As a work of merit, it was well suited to the times in which it was first publisha^l ; but, as his own biographer remarks, "it is defective in arrangement, inelegant in diction, with a few exceptions showing little profundity of argument, no facility of remark, no extent of research, and no classical allusion, and cannot be appealed to as authority on government." Its popularity was entirely owing to the critical juncture of the times.