Burgoon Family
Reunion 2026

His full recorded name was Jean Pierre Jacob Burgun — born around 1715 in Plaine-de-Walsch, Moselle, to Jean-Jacques Jacob Burgun and Dominique Dorothée Schwoerer. He served in the French army for about seven years, then made the decision to leave everything behind — his family, his country, his language.

Jacob and his wife Elizabeth arrived around 1745 — family lore says they sailed on a ship called the Lydia and may have met on board. Elizabeth's maiden name was never recorded. They came as redemptioners, working off the cost of their passage. On October 28, 1754, both Jacob and Elizabeth were formally sold from Benjamin Brown to William Hall of Elk Ridge — Jacob listed as a cordwainer (shoemaker). By that date, five of their eight children had already been born in Maryland. The Patapsco Valley — where we gather this June — is exactly where the American story begins.

On August 30, 1762, Zebediah Baker sold Jacob a 75-acre farm called Mary's Lott — beginning at a Branded White Oak along the Old Frederick Road, about 8 miles northwest of Elkridge. The land had been depleted by years of tobacco farming, but Jacob worked it for two decades. In 1784, he sold it to Charles Carroll — a signer of the Declaration of Independence. By then, the family had already moved to 175 acres in Tyrone, Carroll County, where Jacob would spend the rest of his life.

On September 30, 1771, Jacob was designated a Free Denizon of Maryland — the closest thing to citizenship available to a foreign-born settler. On March 2, 1778, he signed an Oath of Fidelity to Maryland alongside dozens of his neighbors. He signed with "his mark" — a cross drawn in ink — likely because he could read French but never fully mastered written English. By 1759, he was already trusted enough in the community to cosign a loan for a neighbor, Catherine Holdering. He had come a long way from Lorraine.

Jacob wrote his will on June 18, 1806, leaving the Tyrone farm to his youngest son, Francis. He died in 1812 near Taneytown at the extraordinary age of 97 — a Catholic who had outlived his Protestant wife Elizabeth (d. 1800) by twelve years. His will was probated May 26, 1812. He is believed to have been buried at St. John's Catholic Cemetery in Westminster, though a search in 2012 found no marker — his grave may have been displaced in the 1890s when railroad tracks were laid nearby.

Jacob and Elizabeth's eight children — Jacob "James," Peter, Robert, Cornelius, John, Charles, Francis, and Honour "Anna" — carried the name in every direction. Robert enlisted in the Revolutionary Army in 1776. John's wife, Susannah Barlow, was Protestant — but on her deathbed she wanted to die Catholic. A rider was sent to fetch Father Dimitri Gallitzin, son of a Russian general and the first Catholic priest ordained in America. After tending to Susannah, Gallitzin founded a Catholic colony in western Pennsylvania, and his right-hand man was Jacob "James" Burgoon — Burgoon Run near Loretto, PA is named for the family. Peter became a Methodist minister and was killed felling trees to make shingles. In 1824, Francis led a 42-day wagon train of 20 families to Sandusky County, Ohio. Honour "Anna" settled in Bedford, Pennsylvania.

Burgoon men and women served in every major American conflict. Civil War veterans include Peter Burgoon (Co. H, 17th Regt. O.V.I.) and Silas Burgoon. In WWII, James David Burgoon served as 1st Lt. in the USAAF — his marker is in the photo gallery.