My dad seems to think there may have been some that came earlier, but the farthest back we have been able to confirm is 1598.
I can’t even begin to imagine how tough they had to be.
I can’t beat 1598 but Coligny was a relative ~ his family bought our relative’s home as a refuge from the Religious Wars. It is possible the Huguenots tried a settlement on Chesapeake Bay as well but no one has any idea what happened to it ~ or exactly where it was. However, when they began arriving in the 1600s the Brits gave them a more substantial site that’d been owned by Indians earlier. I suspect if we could find that site there’d be some amazing archaeological findings ~ regarding the FIRST settlers.