In 1776, three days before the American Colonies declared Independence, Martin and Betsey Bugart baptized their son Emanuel at the German-speaking Himmell Lutheran Church in the Province of Pennsylvania. This is, thus far, the first available evidence of the Burget family. The area where they resided was at risk of attack from the British and their allies, the Iroquois Confederacy, and the centre of defence was Fort Augusta. The inherent danger may have led to the Bugarts moving to the ostensibly safer land west of the Allegheny Mountains.
(draft iPhoto Journal page)
By 1790, the Birgits had acquired a plot in the Symmes Purchase, likely after taking a wagon and livestock, along with their supplies, along the Forbe's Trail to Fort Pitt, and then a flatboat down the Ohio River. They lived in a cabin on land that was part of the remote Dunlap's Station, housing about a dozen families and a few soldiers. This was following the construction of Fort Washington, not far from an old Hopewell Era earthworks on the Great Miami River. Their farm would have been just outside and the cabin inside this area, also known as Coleraine Fort [is this correct? i was confused.]. However, in the disputed Shawnee (British) Northwest Territory, near what was to become Cincinnati, Martin, my 5GGFather, was killed while escaping a small native raid in April 1792, having survived the brutal, storied Siege of the previous year.
Around 1840, the William and Lydia (Keever) Burget family joined the influx of settlers to the recently 'ceded', but not yet vacated, Miami tribe's Seven-Mile Strip. Burget's Corner rose from this swampy, fertile land and became the social and business center of Johnson Township, Clinton County, Indiana.
(J says this jump is jarring; perhaps add graphic.)
Jean, Mary (Curry), Bill Jake & William Burget
More recently, my GGMother Jean Burget married into the prominant Sipe Dog & Pony Shows' family. She was a professional pianist, particularly before the filmed 'talkies,' and was said to have played with Hoagy Carmichael.
Debbie, Ben, Bill, GMa Johnston (child in previous picture) & Dad
Mike, Kaitlyn, Loraine, Bill & Ben
