[17] Francis Higginson wrote in 1630: “excellent Vines are here up and downe in the Woods. Our Governour hath already planted a Vineyard with great hope of encrease.”
[18] Bellomont records that a company of French immigrants had made good wine in Rhode Island toward the close of the 17th century but they were driven out of the Colony by the English and the industry ceased. N. Y. Col. Doc., 4:787.
[19] American Farmer, Baltimore, 10:387. 1828-29.
[20] American Farmer, Baltimore, 10:387. 1828-29. Ib., 11:172. 1829-30.
[21] Vol. I:117-198. 1769-71.
[22] All that is known of the life of Edward Antill is found in Johnson’s Rural Economy where he is spoken of as “Mr. Antill, late of Middlesex County, New-Jersey, a gentleman who cultivated the grape with sedulous attention.” Johnson’s Rural Economy: 164. 1806.
[23] Legaux’s paper is found as a treatise on the cultivation of the vine in The True American of March 24, 1800. The article contains about 2000 words, the main part of it being “A Statement of the Expense and Income of a Vineyard, Made on Four Acres of Land, situated in Pennsylvania, in the 40th Degree of Latitude.”
Of Legaux’s life, little is known, other than that he was a French vine-grower with an experimental vineyard, as he says in the above article, at “Spring Mill, 13 miles N. N. W. from Philadelphia.” Johnson speaks of Legaux as a philanthropist; McMahon calls him a “gentleman of Worth and Science”; while Rafinesque accuses him of fraud and deception in the matter of calling the native grapes Bland and Alexander, Madeira and Cape.
Judging the man from his article in The True American and from the words of his contemporaries, he was a capable, enthusiastic and intelligent grape-grower. His philanthropy is more doubtful. It is true that he distributed many grape plants but as he himself says to “fellow citizens possessing pecuniary means.” That he practiced deceit in the matter of the introduction of the Alexander as the Cape is probable. However, his deceit, if such it were, may be forgotten and he should be remembered as the chief disseminator of the Alexander, the first distinctive American variety of commercial value.
[24] The True American, March 24, 1800.