New World pioneer

Severens profiles Henrietta de Beaulieu Dering Johnston, who traveled from Dublin, Ireland to Charles Town, South Carolina, becoming America's first professional woman artist and the country's first pastellist. Of French Huguenot origin, her parents, Francis and Susanna de Beaulieu, had to flee France after the Edict of Nantes was revoked. They arrived in England in 1687 with their two children, Henry and Henrietta, where, as Protestants, they were welcomed and given certain rights of citizenship. In London, aged twenty, Johnston married Robert Dering, the seventh son of Sir Edward Dering, second Baronet of Surrenden Dering in Kent, who was a member of the Trish House of Commons. The couple wed in London and shortly afterwards moved to Dublin, where Robert's brother Charles was Auditor of the Irish Exchequer. Other brothers and nephews also held influential positions.