John Baptiste Charles Lucas

John Baptiste Charles Lucas (August 14, 1758 – August 17, 1842) was a French-born member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania. After meeting Benjamin Franklin, Lucas was so inspired—and so impatient with class injustices in France—that he sailed to America. Armed with a letter of introduction from Franklin, Lucas was made a federal land grant judge by Thomas Jefferson, then elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. He eventually resigned and moved to St. Louis, reportedly in part because he and his wife, Anne, missed French society. Biography Lucas was born in Pont-Audemer, Normandy, France. He attended the Honfleur and Paris Law Schools, and graduated from the law department of the University of Caen in 1782. He practiced law in France until 1784, when he immigrated to the United States and settled near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He engaged in agricultural pursuits. Lucas was a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from 1792 to 1798. He served as judge of the Court of Common Pleas in 1794. In the early 1800s, newly-elected President Thomas Jefferson appointed Lucas to a secret mission to St. Louis and New Orleans. Lucas reported directly to the president on the sentiments of the Spaniards in those cities toward the United States, in preparation for Jefferson's efforts at westward expansion.