Crèvecœur was born on December 31, 1735, in
Caen,
Province of Normandy,
France, to the Count and Countess of Crèvecœur. He was educated by
Jesuits at Caen's
Collège Royal-Bourbon, and was sent to live with relatives in
Salisbury around 1751. In 1755 he migrated to
New France, in
North America. There, he served in the
French and Indian War under
Montcalm in the
La Sarre Regiment, where he was a cartographer and rose to the rank of
lieutenant. After the French defeat at the
Battle of the Plains of Abraham of in 1759, he moved to the
Province of New York, where he acquired British citizenship and adopted the anglicized name of John Hector St. John; in 1770 he married an
American woman, Mehitable Tippet, the daughter of a New York merchant. He bought a sizable farm in the Greycourt area of
Chester, New York, a small town in
Orange County. He named his farm "Pine Hill" and prospered as a farmer. He also traveled about, working as a surveyor. He started writing about life in the American colonies and the emergence of an American society. In 1779, during the
American Revolutionary War, Crèvecœur tried to leave the country to return to France because of the faltering health of his father. Accompanied by his son, he entered British-occupied
New York City, where he was imprisoned as a suspected American spy for three months. Eventually, he was released and sailed for England, but was shipwrecked off the coast of Ireland.
Author In 1782 in
London, he published a volume of narrative essays entitled
Letters from an American Farmer. The book quickly became the first literary success by an American author in
Europe and turned Crèvecœur into a celebrated figure. He was the first writer to describe to Europeans the life on the American frontier and to explore the concept of the
American Dream. He used many
American English terms portraying American society as characterized by the principles of equal opportunity and
self-determination. His work provided useful information and understanding of the "
New World" that helped create an
American identity in the minds of Europeans by describing an entire country, rather than another regional colony. His writing celebrated American ingenuity and the uncomplicated lifestyle. It described the acceptance of religious diversity in a society being created from a variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds. He applied the
Latin maxim "
Ubi panis ibi patria" (Where there is bread, there is my country) to early American settlers. He once praised the middle colonies for "fair cities, substantial villages, extensive fields... decent houses, good roads, orchards, meadows, and bridges, where an hundred years ago all was wild, woody, and uncultivated." The original edition, published near the end of the American Revolutionary War, was rather selective in the letters that were included, omitting those that were negative or critical. Norman A. Plotkin argues that "it was intended to serve the English
Whig cause by fostering an atmosphere conducive to reconciliation." The book excluded all but one of the letters that were written after the beginning of the war, as well as earlier ones that were more critical. Crèvecœur himself sympathized with the Whig cause. His wife's family remained loyal to
the Crown and later fled to
Nova Scotia. With regard to French politics, Crèvecœur was a liberal and a follower of the
philosophes and dedicated his book to
Abbé Raynal, who he said "viewed these provinces of North America in their true light, as the asylum of freedom; as the cradle of future nations, and the refuge of distressed Europeans." Plotkin notes that "extremists in the American colonies who violated this principle, incurred Crèvecœur's harshest criticism, although the severest of these criticisms were considered unsuitable for publication at the time." In 1883, his great-grandson, Robert de Crèvecœur, published a biography for which he used previously unpublished letters and manuscripts passed down by the family. Although it received little notice in France, its existence came to the attention of W. P. Trent of
Columbia University, who in 1904 published a reprint of
Letters of an American Farmer. In 1916, Crèvecœur's first American biographer, Julia Post Mitchell, who had access to all the manuscripts, made a more balanced assessment and wrote that Crèvecœur addressed "problems in political economy which European governments were trying in vain to solve." He was "illustrating his theories from American conditions" and was not just "a garruluous apologist of American life." The additional manuscripts were published in 1925.
Diplomat The success of his book in France had led to his being taken up by an influential circle, and he was appointed the French consul for New York, including the areas of
New Jersey and
Connecticut. Crèvecœur returned to New York City as the newly appointed French consul in November 1783. Anxious to be reunited with his family, he learned that his farm had been destroyed in an Indian raid, his wife was dead, and his two younger children missing. He stayed in the house of his friend
William Seton, who, as the last royal public notary for the City and Province of New York, had helped to secure his release in 1780 from the prison he was kept in. Principal of the import-export mercantile firm the William Seton Company, Seton helped Crèvecœur locate his children, who were safe and living with a family in
Boston. The following spring, Crèvecœur reunited with his children. For most of the 1780s, he lived in New York City.
St. Peter's, New York At that time, New York City was the national capital, and most of the resident Catholics were connected to the diplomatic corps. Initially, they met for services at the home of the
Spanish consul. Their numbers increased with seafaring people, merchants, emigrants from the
Spanish West Indies, and a few
Acadians. They then rented space at
Vauxhall Gardens, a garden and entertainment venue located along the North River on Greenwich Street between Warren and Chambers Streets. In 1785,
Portuguese Consul Jose Roiz Silva, Spanish Consul Tomas Stoughton and others sought to rent the vacant Exchange Building and deemed Crèvecœur the best one to make the approach. Although Crèvecœur was relatively indifferent to religion, he was sympathetic to the idea of liberty of conscience and a friend of
Lafayette. When the proposal was rejected, Crèvecœur was insulted and became very active in working for the establishment of the first Catholic church in the city. He later served as president of the first Board of Trustees of
St. Peter's Church, on Barclay Street. In 1789, during a stay in France, he was trapped by the political upheaval that was quickly turning into the
French Revolution. At risk as an aristocrat, he went into hiding and secretly tried to gain passage to the United States. The necessary papers were finally delivered to him by the new American ambassador to France,
James Monroe, at the end of his life. Crèvecœur returned to France and settled permanently on land that he inherited from his father. On November 12, 1813, he died in
Sarcelles,
Île-de-France,
France. The town of
St. Johnsbury, Vermont, is named after him, as suggested by
Ethan Allen. == Primary works ==