Elias Neau
Elias Neau, born Élie Neau, in Moëze, Saintonge, was a French Huguenot. After the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685, he was a Huguenot refugee in New York where he was a prosperous merchant. In 1692, he was captured by a French privateer near Jamaica, and later, as a Protestant, was sentenced to a life sentence as a galley slave then imprisoned in Marseille. He was released in 1698, following the intercession of King William III. He was then elected to the position of elder of the French church in New York. In 1706, he secured passage of a bill in New York stating that slaves could be catechized.
The Episcopal Church commemorates him as a "witness to the faith" on September 7.
