Who was Phillip Hendrik Hering Bogel?

 If not for Bogel, Texas may have never become Texas.

Bogel was an imposter who came into what became Texas because of “embezzlement charges of tax funds” in Holland. He left a wife and several children when he fled to the new world.

Cecil E. Burney, writing about his Francis Holland ancestors of Grimes County in an East Texas Historical Journal article, states that “Bogel was a genial international con-man who crossed into Texas from Louisiana in 1805.”

Bogel renamed himself when he escaped from Holland arriving in April 1795 in Spanish Louisiana. He became Baron de Bastrop, representing himself as a Dutch nobleman. During the next decade he received the Spanish Government’s permission to establish a colony to engage in several business ventures in Louisiana and Kentucky.

When the U. S. made the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the now named Bastrop moved across the Sabine River to then Spanish Texas. He settled in San Antonio where he began operation of a freighting business gaining influence with the inhabitants and Spanish officials. In 1810 he was appointed second alcade at Bexar.

According to a memorandum left by Stephen F. Austin, now on file at the Institute of Texas Cultures, Austin claimed that when his father Moses was first refused establishing a colony by officials in San Antonio and ordered to leave Texas immediately, that Bastrop saw him and recognized him as someone who he had met years earlier at an inn in Kentucky.

Bastrop approached Austin. He arranged for Austin’s departure delay with the Spanish officials. He helped rewrite Austin’s application as well as aided to get the colony approved. With Moses Austin’s death, Bastrop, according to the Handbook of Texas, “served as intermediary with the Mexican government for Stephen F. Austin, who would have encountered many more obstacles but for Bastrop’s assistance and advice.”

In July of 1823, Bastrop was appointed commissioner of colonization for the Austin colony with authority to issue land titles. This was followed in September when “the settlers elected Bastrop to the provincial deputation at Bexar, which in turn chose him as representative to the legislature of the new state of Coahuila and Texas in May 1824.”

Bastrop’s salary was paid by “contributions from his constituents and they were not generous. Bastrop would die nearly three years later on Feb. 23, 1827 and did not leave enough money to pay his burial expenses. Fellow legislators donated the funds for his burial at Saltillo.”

So, who was Phillip Hendrik Hering Bogel? He was born in Dutch Guiana Nov. 23, 1759, the son of Conraed Laurens Nering and Maria Jacoba (Kraayvanger) Bogel. He moved to Holland with his parents in 1764. In 1779, he enlisted in the cavalry of Holland and Upper Issel. He married Georgine Wolffeline Francoise Lijcklama a Nyeholt in Oldeboorn, Holland on April 28, 1782. They had five children. He served as collector general of taxes for the province of Friesland to be accused of absconding with the proceeds.

The Handbook of Texas states that “only in the last half-century have records from the Netherlands been found to shed light on Bastrop’s mysterious origins. Bastrop, Texas, and Bastrop, Louisiana, as well as Bastrop County, Texas were named in his honor.”

Written by Betty Dunn, Two Rivers Heritage Foundation. See www.tworiversheritagefoundation. org for more information and membership.