RENE de ST. JULIEN

Excerpted from Manly, Elizabeth Cate (1972). THE JULIANS AND ALLIED

FAMILIES. Privately published, Cleveland, TN. Pp. 5-6.

RENE de ST. JULIEN was born about 1660, and no doubt was from Vitre, Brittany, in the northwestern part of France. A letter says "There is no document in Vitre showing what province they came from before coming to Vitre. They are of nobility beyond doubt." There are birth records of nine children born to PIERRE (also called RENE) de ST. JULIEN and his wife JEANNE LeFEBRE. After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, many Huguenots came to America. "Many of the refugees to Carolina were of distinguished antecedents and not a few of the nobility. Among them were PIERRE de ST. JULIEN, his brother LOUIS, his brother-in-law, RENE RAVENAL, and others, all from Vitre in Brittany. A deed from typescript record of South Carolina Indentures for 1712-1713, Charleston, p. 67, lists RENE JULIEN, planter of Berkely, to ISSAC MOTTE, 462 A. on Boowatt Creek, bounds on land of JOHN PERRY, Esq., called YOUGH, 4-21-1712. This plantation was in the midst of PIERRE JULIEN's many plantations." [from Huguenot Society of South Carolina Records]. It seems very reasonable that RENE was a brother of PIERRE. RENE is in a record of denizens, 3-11-1700. Losing two young sons, RENE decided to move to the more healthful climate of Maryland. In 1712, RENE de ST. JULIEN was living in Cecil County, Maryland.

RENE became a soldier in his youth, and was in the army of JAMES II in the English Revolution of 1688, but for reasons of preference changed to the standard of KING WILLIAM along with many others. He fought under him at the battle of the Boyne, July 1, 1690. For his services as a soldier he was granted, by the reigning family of England, land beyond the Mississippi River. He is said to have told his family they need never consider themselves settled until they were established there. But they lived in Maryland until 1735-1740, moved to Winchester, Virginia, where RENE died about 1744. There he and his wife are buried in the old Opequon Cemetery. Shortly after BRADDOCK's defeat in 1755, RENE's five sons, who had come with him from Maryland (STEPHEN and JACOB remained there), fled through terror of the Indians to Orange County, North Carolina, and took lands in the section which later became Randolph and Guilford Counties.

En route to America, RENE de ST. JULIEN stopped off on the Isle of Bermuda and married MARY BULLOCK. [MARY BULLOCK was the daughter of CAPT. STEPHEN BULLOCK and his wife MARY. MARY BULLOCK, wife of RENE de ST. JULIEN, is said to have been a "great lady" of Spanish and Scottish descent, reputed to have been very wealthy and beautiful. RENE is said to have been a giant in stature with red hair, a quick temper, and an indomitable will, a Presbyterian of the strictest form who particularly disliked the Quaker testimony against war and slavery. The BULLOCKs were Quakers so the attitudes of RENE and MARY must sometimes have conflicted. Some of their descendants in North Carolina became Quakers.]

The earliest land transaction on record for Bohemia Manor [Cecil County, Maryland] and RENE JULIAN is May 1, 1720, but his being there earlier is attested by the record of the birth of his son ISAAC in 1716, which appears in the Register of St. Ann's Parish at Annapolis, which is now in the Hall of Records there. In 1737 the lease obtained in 1720 was transferred to HENRY McCOY, and it is assumed that this was the time of his going to Winchester, Frederick County, Virginia.

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