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Captain
John Bogert
John Bogert was born in September 1761. He was the eldest son of skipper and surveyor Hendrick Bogert and Barbara Marselis Bogert. He grew up along the waterfront learning the riverman's craft and also how to draft maps from his father - the city surveyor.
*At
the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, fifteen year
old John Bogert was drafted out of the Albany militia
to escort British prisoners taken at St. Johns' to
Kingston and then on to Pennsylvania. The next year,
he was a sailor on his father's sloop, the Magdeline
helping transport stores and supplies on the Hudson
for the Continental army. In 1777, he took over for
his father as skipper. The Magdeline carried companies
of soldiers between Albany and Fishkill and hauled
provisions, wood, and military stores as well. Later
he conducted the wife of a British officer, a French
priest, and others to New York under a flag of truce.
Bogert's pension application details his services,
which continued on the river and on land during the
winter thru the end of the war. Although appearing
on local muster rolls, this able teenager was valuable
enough to be exempted from military service on a
number of occasions.
By
the time he came of age at the end of the war, John
Bogert was an experienced Hudson River skipper. Living
on court Street in his father's first ward household,
he began to take part in civic actiities serving
as chimney viewer and fireman. Later he would be
elected alderman, supervisor, and then chamberlain
or treasurer. He retained his milita commission for
a number of years.
In
1784, he married Kingston native Catherine Ten Broeck.
She died in 1792 after bearing six Bogert children.
In April 1796, he married Christina Vaught in the
Schenectady Dutch church. That marriage produced
six more children who were baptized in the Albany
Dutch church where he was a member and officer. By
the 1790s, he had succeeded his father as city surveyor.
His tenure produced a number of maps that structured
and documented the growth of his booming American
city.
By
1800, he had become head of his own first ward household located next door
south of the city hall from where he sold millstones. Community leader and still
known as a sloop captain, John Bogert was a fixture at 218 then 658 South Market
Street (later 177 Broadway) for several decades. He was employed as a clerk at
the Mechanics & Farmers Bank.
His
second wife, Christina, died in 1836. The census
of 1850 configured his household on "Broadway" with his daughters, Sarah (age 60) and Mary (age 48), grandson
Dr. Henry B. Fay (a physician age 28), John Bogert (age 16), Eliza Van Vechten
(age 58), and Catherine Beringer (a native of German - age 32). John Bogert was
listed as the head of the household (age 89).
Captain
John Bogert died in May 1853 at the age of ninety-two.
He was the oldest man in Albany and the "last of the old Dutch skippers" on the Hudson River. He
was interred at the new Albany Rural Cemetery.
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Sources: The long life of John Bogert is CAP biography number
6121. This profile is derived chiefly from family
and community-based resources. We are indebted to
Research Associate Jan Ghee for adopting Captain
Bogert as a personal research topic and unearthing
an impressive cache of materials that enable us to
know more about his long life. *Excerpt from an unpublished
manuscript entitled "River People in Early Albany."
A
portrait attributed to Ezra Ames and painted about
1812 is noted but could be located by the authors
of Ezra Ames, p. 210.
"Death
of Capt. John Bogart -- This venerable, respectable and well known citizen
expired at his residence in this city Sunday afternoon. He had reached the great
age of 92 yrs. and was the oldest male citizen in Albany. Captain Bogart was
born in this city and resided here all his long life. More than a half century
in the house in which he died. He was one of the last of the old "Dutch Skippers" of
the Hudson River." Printed in Annals, volume 5, p 329. Grammar
and punctuation modernized.
By Stefan Bielinski, Colonial Albany Social History Project [http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/albany]
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