Early Life
Benjamin was born in or near Paris, France, the son of the French publisher Nicolas Bonneville and his wife Marguerite Brazier. When he was seven, his family moved to the United States in 1803; their passage was paid by Thomas Paine. Paine had lodged with the Bonnevilles in France and was godfather to Benjamin and his two brothers, Louis and Thomas. In his will, Paine left the bulk of his estate to Marguerite who had cared for him until he died in 1809. The inheritance included one hundred acres (40.5 ha) of his New Rochelle, New York farm where they had been living, so she could maintain and educate her sons.
Read more about this topic: Benjamin Bonneville
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Names on a list, whose faces I do not recall
But they are gone to early death, who late in school
Distinguished the belt feed lever from the belt holding pawl.”
—Richard Eberhart (b. 1904)
“We realize that we are laggards from the past century, still living in what Marx kindly calls ‘the idiocy of rural life,’ and we know that our rural life is like that of the past, not like that of much of the present.”
—For the State of Vermont, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)