Quebec City minus 46: New France First Came to Charlesfort

In Quebec City's 400th birthday stays under radar,     ricknight  told that four centuries of La Ville de Québec are on the horizon. But almost a half century before Quebec (in 1562), Huguenots founded Charlesfort, the first French-speaking colony in the New World , on the coastal marshlands of what is now southern South Carolina.

Although the colony failed horribly (some colonists resorted to cannibalism on a desperate boat voyage away from Charlesfort), this was the first time the French language was spoken in a permanent North American settlement.

The Charlesfort: History of the French Settlement website   gives a brief history of Huguenot colony, and the Beaufort County Library's Ghost Stories of Beaufort County, SC  web page tells the ghost story of a Huguenot dwarf from Charlesfort who was killed in a brawl. Monsieur Gauche is now a poltergeist who communicates in tapped code and who leaves bloody red handprints on the windows of an antebellum house ominously known as "The Castle."

Dors en paix, Charlesfort. Et vive la Nouvelle France au Québec!