The earliest records of the LeCoultre family in Switzerland date from the 16th century, when Pierre LeCoultre (circa 1530 ? circa 1600), a French Huguenot, fled to Geneva from Lizy-sur-Ourcq, France to escape religious persecution. In 1558, he obtained the status of ?inhabitant? but left the following year to acquire a plot of land in the Vall?e de Joux. Over time, a small community formed and in 1612, Pierre LeCoultre\'s son built a church there, marking the founding of the village of Le Sentier where the company\'s Manufacture is still based today.[8] In 1833, following his invention of a machine to cut watch pinions from steel,[9] Antoine LeCoultre (1803-1881) founded a small watchmaking workshop in Le Sentier, where he honed his horological skills to create high-quality timepieces.[10] In 1844, he invented the world\'s most precise measuring instrument at the time, the Millionom?tre, and in 1847 he created a keyless system to rewind and set watches.[10] Four years later, he was awarded a gold medal for his work on timepiece precision and Mechanization at the first Universal Exhibition in London.[10] In 1866, at a time when watchmaking skills were divided up among hundreds of small workshops,[11] Antoine and his son, Elie LeCoultre (1842-1917), established the Vall?e de Joux\'s first full-fledged manufacture, LeCoultre & Cie., pooling their employees? expertise under one roof. Under this set-up, they developed in 1870 the first partially mechanised production processes for complicated movements.[12] By the same year, the Manufacture employed 500 people and was known as the ?Grande Maison of the Vall?e de Joux?, and by 1900, it had created over 350 different calibres, of which 128 were equipped with chronograph functions and 99 with repeater mechanisms. From 1902 and for the next 30 years, LeCoultre & Cie. produced most of the movement blanks for Patek Philippe of Geneva.