Jean Jacques Vioget
Jean Jacques Vioget (1794–1855), originally from Switzerland, was a surveyor and sea captain, who came to California in 1837. He made the first survey and map of Yerba Buena (which later was re-named San Francisco) in 1839. He worked for John Sutter and later moved to San Jose. He was also an artist, violinist, and spoke multiple languages.[1]
Life
Born in Combremont-le-Petit, Switzerland on 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 joined Napoleon'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 the Battle 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 of Peru and Ecuador.
Vioget first arrived in San Francisco, then known as Yerba Buena, in 1837, when only two homes stood in the village - those of
In 1839 Governor
Vioget first went to work for fellow countryman John Sutter, surveying Sutter's
In 1844, Governor Manuel Micheltorena granted Vioget Rancho Blucher. After his marriage to Maria Montero Benarides de Vasques in 1847, Vioget sold Rancho Blucher to Captain Stephen Smith, grantee of Rancho Bodega directly to the north. Vioget spent his last years in San Jose, where he died in 1855 and is buried.
References
- ^ 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 from the original on 2015-10-30. Retrieved 2017-06-12.
- ISBN 978-1-902669-64-9
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)