View from Marie Antoinette Overlook
by Carolyn Derstine
Title
View from Marie Antoinette Overlook
Artist
Carolyn Derstine
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
The Marie Antoinette Lookout is located just off of US Route 6 near Wyalusing in Pennsylvania. It offers a scenic view of the Susquehanna River, the mountains, the French Azilum (French for "asylum"), and a French refugee settlement that was built sometime in the late 1700s or early 1800s by French refugees fleeing the ongoing violence in France. It is believed that members of the French aristocracy bought land that was across the river from the lookout and built a house there for Marie Antoinette to find safety from the continuing violence in France . It is not known whether Marie Antoinette ever knew about Azilum as a potential refuge as she was beheaded in France soon after the settlement was established. The settlers lived here for 10 years until Napoleon Bonaparte, the Emperor, after the French Revolution, granted repatriation rights to citizens who had fled around the world to escape persecution.
The settlement is now known as the French Azilum Historic Site. There is little left of the original 50-or- so houses, however, a few families, including the LaPortes, remained. These families and their descendants helped to settle nearby communities. Today, the historic site contains over twenty acres of the original settlement. Although no structures from the original town survive, an original foundation has been left exposed for public viewing and a reconstructed and relocated log cabin, circa 1790, serves as a small museum with artifacts pertaining to the settlement. In this overlook view, the sun is spotlighting the buildings of the French Azilum Historic Site.
**FIRST PLACE**
"Green Mountains Fields, Photography Only" contest
November 2020
Uploaded
May 14th, 2015
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Viewed 1,997 Times - Last Visitor from Fairfield, CT on 03/28/2024 at 5:31 AM
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