Texas Dutch Con Man Baron Bastrop's Good Deeds

I think that may be my Great Great Great Great Great Uncle Philip Hendrik Nering Bögel waving a weapon in the painting.

Uncle Bögel was born in Paramaribo, Dutch Guiana in 1759. Thus he was Dutch. Uncle Bögel moved back to Holland in 1764, eventually getting married, having 5 kids and working as a tax collector.

In 1793 Uncle Bögel was accused of embezzling tax money. So, he left his family and fled to the New World. Eventually ending up in the part of America where, to this day, little things like stealing tax money, or being on the take to gas drilling companies, is no big deal, that being the part of the New World that eventually became Texas.

I am half Dutch. My immediate ancestors came to America from Holland in the late 1880s. It took awhile for my Great Great Grandpa to find their final location.

At one point I believe my Great Grandpa, John, was sent to Texas, to check out a Dutch/German community in the area that is now Denton. He reported back that this would not do. Then the little family heard of an area in the far Northwest of America that had a lot of Dutch settlers. So, my Great Grandpa hopped a train and made it to what is now a town called Lynden, in Whatcom County, in what was then Washington Territory. He stayed a Summer, then returned to his mom and dad and sister in the Midwest, with a knapsack full of apples and pieces of thick bark, tales of tall trees, rich farmland, berries growing wild. The family made their final move.

Lynden, in Whatcom County, to this day, remains a Dutch town.

Anyway, back to Uncle Bögel. He gets to the land that eventually became Texas. He'd renamed himself Felipe Enrique Neri, Baron de Bastrop, a Dutch nobleman. The locals bought his act. Just like the contemporary Texas locals have bought mine as Durango Jones, Baron de Fort Worth, a Dutch nobleman.

When the "Baron" showed up, in 1805, he was given a colony grant and was later appointed the chief judicial official of San Antonio. Baron Bastrop worked with Stephen F. Austin in negotiating with the Mexicans and was key in opening the port of Galveston.

Baron Bastrop was very important and influential in the colonization of Texas. There are some who believe that without him Texas might never have seen the influx of Anglo settlers who eventually took control of Texas from Mexico.

To honor Baron Bastrop, the towns of Bastrop, Texas and Bastrop, Lousisiana and Bastrop County, Texas are named after him.

When Baron Bastrop died there was not enough money for a funeral. Fellow members of the legislature paid to bury him. Baron Bastrop never saw the wife and kids he left behind in Holland, again, but in his will, he left his land to them.

There you go, that is your Texas history lesson for the day.