Monday, December 24, 2012
...working in the silver mines of Mexico for eight years
Ángel Navarro, 6th great grandfather to Aaron and Josh,(1748–1808) was a leading citizen and merchant of Spanish Texas, was born about 1748 in Ajaccio, Corsica, and grew up during the Corsican revolution against Genoan rule. In 1762 he ran away from home, began working as a servant in various Mediterranean ports, and traveling eventually from Genoa to Barcelona and Cádiz, where he took passage on a ship to colonial Mexico. After arriving in 1769, he was employed by Juan Antonio Agustín and worked for him eight years in the silver mines of Vallecillo, about sixty miles south of Laredo, Texas.
In 1777, his employment with Agustín ended, Navarro moved to San Antonio to work for himself as a merchant. In 1783 he married María Josefa Ruiz y Peña, a sister of José Francisco Ruiz, who held the same political beliefs as the Navarros. Navarro built a house and a store on the corner of Presidio (now Commerce) and North Flores, facing the busy public market. According to his son Antonio, Navarro "by means of commerce was able to maintain the family in good circumstances and educate his children." Ángel Navarro also set an example of civic duty that was followed by his sons.
He served in various public offices from the time he became the town's first elected alcalde in 1790 until the year before his death, when he was again alcalde. He died on October 31, 1808, and was the first person buried in the new cemetery for which he had donated funds the year before. Of his twelve children, six survived him—four sons, José Ángel, Antonio, Eugenio, and Luciano Navarro,and two daughters, María Antonia and María Josefa. Josefa later married Juan Martín Veramendiqv, and their daughter Ursula married James Bowie.
John Ogden...Pilgrim
John Ogden, 10th great grandfather of Aaron and Josh, was one of our country’s earliest patriots – a man who stood tall against the intrusion of foreign intervention in colonial affairs. An accomplished stonemason, John Ogden was born in Lancashire, England in 1609. He immigrated to the New World in 1641, arriving in Rippowam (now Stamford, Connecticut) to build a dam and gristmill for the community. In 1642, he was hired to build the first permanent stone church in Fort Amsterdam, then but a small dusty settlement at the foot of Manhattan Island.
Leaving Stamford in 1644, Ogden spent the next twenty-one years on Long Island. Among other accomplishments there, he established the first commercial whaling enterprise in America.
In 1665 Ogden became one of the original patentees on the Elizabethtown Purchase, the first English settlement in the Colony of New Jersey. For the next nineteen years, until his death in 1682, he led the community though the difficult years of conflict between the settlers – who had purchased their land directly from the Indians – and the English proprietors, who attempted to usurp the settlers’ property and their government. On one occasion, he risked almost everything he owned rather than accede to a foreign authority that he felt had no legal standing. This single act of civil disobedience should allow him to stand with the foremost patriots in our history
Ogden’s service to his community included many stints as a magistrate, first at the town level and later at the East New Jersey colony level. He was also chosen on many occasions to lead delegations to deal with the Indians, who trusted him completely.
His years in New Jersey also saw Ogden develop and pursue many business interests. He built, with his own hands, a gristmill, a lumber mill, a tanyard, and a brickyard. He also conducted a successful trading business and built another whaling company.
No accurate information has been previously published about John Ogden’s earliest years in England. A one-hundred-year-old genealogical study on the Ogden family in America – which has served as the foundation for much of our information about the man – is inaccurate. Using both direct and inferential information, Jack Harpster has recreated that early time, providing the first-ever look at the ancestral home of the Ogdens and how they came to immigrate to America. Harpster has also delved deep into early colonial records to discuss the Ogden family’s life and times in America during the mid to late 1600s. The story is highlighted by many colorful incidents and descriptions, often told in the words on contemporary colonial Americans.
John Ogden, The Pilgrim (1609-1982): A Man of More than Ordinary Mark, provides new history – and often rewrites existing history – about an important colonial American pioneer. It is an absorbing, insightful biography set in an exciting but understudies period of American history.
Monday, December 17, 2012
Monday, December 3, 2012
Templar Knight William de Warenne
William de Warenne, my 25th great grandfather, was the eldest son of the William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey and Elizabeth de Vermandois. He was generally loyal to king Stephen. He fought at the Battle of Lincoln (1141), and was one of the leaders of the army that pursued the empress Matilda in her flight from Winchester, and which captured Robert of Gloucester. Crusader Knight (1146-48)He was one of the nobles that, along with Louis VII of France, took crusading vows at Vezelay in 1146, and he accompanied the initial army of the Second Crusade the next year. He was killed by a Turkish attack while the army was marching across Anatolia (modern day Turkey) on their way to the Holy Land.
In Dec 1147 the French-Norman force reaches the Biblical town of Ephesus (I reached the same town in 1966) on the west coast of Turkey. They are joined by remnants of the German army which had previously taken heavy losses at Dorylaeum. Marching across Southwest Turkey and fight in a unsuccessful battle at Laodicea against the Turks on the border between Byzantine Empire and Seljuks of Rum (3-4 Jan 1148). On 8-Jan they battle again in the area of Mount Cadmus, where Turks ambush the main train of infantry and non-combatants because the main force is too far forwards.
King Louis and his bodyguard of Templar Knights and Noblemen sallied forth in a classic example of chivalry to protect the poor and valiantly charged the Turks. Most of the knights were killed, including William, and Louis barely escaped with his life. His army arrives later at the coastal city of Adalia. The battle is recorded by Odo de Deuil, personal chaplain to Louis, in his book De Profectione - pp 68-127.
He was a great-grandson of Henry I of France, and half-brother to Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester, Waleran IV de Beaumont, Count of Meulan, and Hugh de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Bedford. William married Adela (or Ela), daughter of William Talvas, count of Ponthieu, who was the son of Robert of Bellême. They had one child, a daughter, Isabel, who was his heir. She married first William of Blois, second son of King Stephen, and who became earl of Warenne or Surrey. After he died without children in October 1159, she married Hamelin, half-brother of Henry II, who also became Earl of Warenne or Surrey. He took the de Warenne surname, and their descendants carried on the earldom.
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