Town, northeastern
Pennsylvania. During the
French Revolution, a group of aristocrats escaped to America,
and founded what they hoped would be a temporary government
in exile on the banks of the
Susquehanna. They did not learn until later that the
Louis XVI and his family had already been subjected to the
guillotine. Later, the government granted amnesty to the aristocrats, and most of those who could still afford to returned to France.
Those who remained were assimilated into the local culture. Some of them interbred with a group of refugee native Americans south of Towanda, contributing to a small but unique ethnic group, often known derogatively as pools (short for Vanderpool, a common last name amongst the group) or connemeyers (unknown, perhaps from "connais meilleur", French for "know better"). This group of a couple thousand still speaks a unique dialect of American english.