"Protestant Immigration to Louisiana". Teachinghistory.org, accessed 2 September 2011.</ref> Their descendants in many families continued to use French first names and surnames for their children well into the nineteenth century. Assimilated, the French made numerous contributions to United States economic life, especially as merchants and artisans in the late Colonial and early Federal periods. For example, E.I. du Pont, a former student of Lavoisier, established the Eleutherian gunpowder mills.<ref>article on EIDupont says he did not even emigrate to the US and establish the mills until after the French Revolution, so the mills were not operating for theAmerican revolution</ref> Howard Hughes, famed investor, pilot, film director, and philanthropist, was also of Huguenot descent and descendant from Rev. John Gano. Paul Revere was descended from Huguenot refugees, as was Henry Laurens, who signed the Articles of Confederation for South Carolina; Jack Jouett, who made the ride from Cuckoo Tavern to warn Thomas Jefferson and others that Tarleton and his men were on their way to arrest him for crimes against the king; Reverend John Gano was a Revolutionary War chaplain and spiritual advisor to George Washington; Francis Marion, and a number of other leaders of the American Revolution and later statesmen. The last active Huguenot congregation in North America worships in Charleston, South Carolina, at a church that dates to 1844. The Huguenot Society of America maintains the Manakin Episcopal Church in Virginia as a historic shrine with occasional services. The Society has chapters in numerous states, with the one in Texas being the largest. The Huguenots originally spoke French on their arrival in the American colonies, but after two or three generations, they had switched to English. They did not promote French-language schools or publications and "lost" their historic identity.<ref>Thera Wijsenbeek, "Identity Lost: Huguenot refugees in the Dutch Republic and its former colonies in North America and South Africa, 1650 to 1750: a comparison". "South African Historical Journal" 59.1 (2007): 79–102.</ref> In upstate New York they merged with the Dutch Reformed community and switched first to Dutch and then in the early 19th century to English.<ref>Eric J. Roth, "From Protestant International to Hudson Valley Provincial: A Case Study of Language Use and Ethnicity in New Paltz, New York, 1678–1834".