BOURGON BROUCARD

Bourgon Broucard, our seventh great grandfather, was born on Mar 1, 1645 at Bungary, near LaRochelle, France on the western seacoast near the Bay of Biscay. (Brouckaert means living at the  lowlands.)  Bourgon was from an honored and noted French family.

Bourgon Broucard was a Huguenot, a follower of John Calvin, who left France for Germany seeking religious freedom, prior to 1664. He had one child by his first wife there, and three children by his second wife there before moving to Amsterdam, Holland between 1672 and 1675.

His first wife was Marie du May, who he married on Dec 1, 1663 at the Walloon Church in Manheim, Germany. She died at Manheim.

His second wife was Catherine LeFevre, who he married on Dec 18, 1666. She was the daughter of Abraham LeFevre and Antoinette Jerrian. 

Bourgon and wife, Catherine, and children immigrated in 1675 on the "Gilded Otter," settled in what is now Brooklyn, New York. They moved to Cripplebush in Bushwick, Long Island, where he bought a farm. [ In 2018: Bushwick is a working-class neighborhood in the northern part of the New York Cityborough of Brooklyn. It was first founded and settled during Dutch colonial times.]

Four years later, he sold-out, then in 1692 purchased another farm in Dutch Kills (now a part of Long Island City).  In 1677, he was listed among the members at the settlement of Domine Casparus Van Zuuren in Kings County Breuckelyn, Midwout, New Amersfoort, New Utrecht.    He bought more land in Mospeth Kills, Newtown. Bourgon Broucard was one of the founders of the French Church of New York.

On May 9, 1702, he and his son-in-law, John Coverson, bought 2000 acres of land in Somerset County, New Jersey. The land was bounded on the north and northwest by the Raritan and Millstone Rivers. They purchased this land from William Dockwra, a London merchant. This photograph of the Raritan and Millstone Rivers, from Wikipedia, gives an idea of where their property must have been.

 Bourgon  died in 1720 in Bushwick, Long Island, New York about the age of 75, and was buried on the bank of the Raritan River in New Jersey, where the Millstone River empties into it.

BOURGON BROUCARD
BORN: Mar. 1, 1645 in Bungary, near La Rochelle, France
MARRIED: 1.Marie du May in Manheim, Germany; 2. Catherine LaFevre in Germany
DIED: 1720 in Bushwick, Long Island, NY
BURIED: On the bank of the Raritan River, Somerset, NJ
SOURCES: Mrs. Elsie Foster, "Our Brokaw/Bragaw Heritage"; Find A Grave Website with obituary by Larry Cornwell, in  2009, #33444996.