Jean Jacques Vioget
Jean Jacques Vioget(1794–1855), originally fromSwitzerland,was a surveyor and sea captain, who came to California in 1837. He made the first survey and map ofYerba Buena(which later was re-namedSan Francisco) in 1839. He worked forJohn Sutterand later moved toSan Jose.He was also an artist, violinist, and spoke multiple languages.[1]
Life
[edit]Born inCombremont-le-Petit,Switzerlandon April 22, 1794, the son of Jean Pierre Vioget and Jeanne Suzanne Meister (or Meystre). He was baptized on 4 May 1794 in the church of Combremont-le -Petit. His baptism record reveals the name of "Jean Jacob Vioget". He joinedNapoleon's army in the fourth Swiss Regiment[2]at the age of 19 in November 1813. He enlisted in the "Battalion of Stoffel"[3]in April 1815, and was wounded at theBattle of Wavre.He was later apprenticed to a French naval engineer. In the 1820s he served in the Brazilian navy, rising to the rank of captain, and engaging in the maritime trade in South America. During the early 1830s he was captain of a bark, Delmire, trading along the coast ofPeruandEcuador.
Vioget first arrived in San Francisco, then known as Yerba Buena, in 1837, when only two homes stood in the village - those ofJacob P. LeeseandWilliam A. Richardson.It was at this time that Vioget made a watercolor of theSan Francisco Bay,which hung in the cabin of his ship for the next two years. He returned to Yerba Buena in 1839.
In 1839 GovernorJuan B. Alvaradoordered a survey of Yerba Buena, and thealcalde,Francisco Guerrero,employed Vioget to do the work.[4]Vioget's survey covered the area that is now San Francisco's Financial District and featured a grid made of trapezoidal blocks.[5]In 1840, on a third of a block on Clay Street that Vioget received as payment for his work, he built Vioget House, which also had a saloon and billiard parlor. After theMexican–American War,the house was renamed Portsmouth House in honor of theUSS Portsmouth.Vioget became a leading saloon-keeper and merchant in the city, and also continued to offer his services as a surveyor.
Vioget first went to work for fellow countryman John Sutter, surveying Sutter'sSacramento-area land grants in 1841 and 1843. Vioget also served as a witness to Sutter's purchase ofFort Rossfrom the Russians in December 1841. Vioget was also Sutter's agent in San Francisco.
In 1844, GovernorManuel Micheltorenagranted ViogetRancho Blucher.After his marriage to Maria Montero Benarides de Vasques in 1847, Vioget sold Rancho Blucher to Captain Stephen Smith, grantee ofRancho Bodegadirectly to the north. Vioget spent his last years in San Jose, where he died in 1855 and is buried.
References
[edit]- ^Jean Jacques Vioget (1799 - 1855)[permanent dead link]
- ^SHD register 23 YC 179
- ^Register of the Battalion of Stoffel, page 49, Service historique de la Defense SHD, chateau de Vincennes, Paris- France, register 23 YC 180
- ^"Plan of Yerba Buena by Jean Jacques Vioget".Archived fromthe originalon 2015-10-30.Retrieved2017-06-12.
- ^Mick Sinclair, 2004,San Francisco: a cultural and literary history,Signal Books,ISBN978-1-902669-64-9
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