The Galusha famillies' tradition matches my Ober (d'Aubert) and Cottrell family, who are all part of this family group, and intermarried for many generations. The Cottrell family are "Huguenot's" who spent many generations in both Wales and England as wealthy refugees, and are well documented back to the 14th century, originating in southern France. There seems to be a group of Welsh "Huguenots" refugees who are missing but all came to New England (Cottrells to Providence) Nicholas being born there in ca. 1622. It cannot be discounted that they were wealthy merchants who managed to have their own ships, mine were, and this would match Jacob's background story; also, John Cabot made his voyages to the New World and lost ships several times; I have found links between my family and Richard ap Meryk aka Richard Amerike, an Anglo-Welsh merchant who was the owner of Cabot's ship the Matthew and was a royal customs officer and sheriff of Bristol. I have back tracked many branches of my family to the area immediately around Bristol.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Amerike
Huguenots were trying to leave France in the 16th century, far pre-dating the English. More research needs to be done into the family tradition; family traditions are important clues especially about their refugee origins, we just don't have all the information. Also, please contact me if you have had your DNA sequenced and want to compare profiles on GEDMATCH. I have more information on origins in France.