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 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 reputed to be the oldest man in Albany and the "last of the old Dutch skippers" on the Hudson River. He was interred in the new Albany Rural Cemetery.

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.