ALTERNATE ORIGINS

Nicolas Fouquet was born in to an influential family of the and, after some preliminary schooling with the at the age of 13, The immigrant, commonly known as Guillaume Fouquet, is widely believed to have been a French Huguenot. Sometime

was admitted as avocat at the . While still in his teens, he held several positions of responsibility, and in 1636, when just twenty, after his arrival in Charles City County, he married an English woman named Jane Eyre and, together, they began a cascade of he was able to buy the post of . In 1640 he married the rich Louise Fourché, who died a year later.

American descendants.

From 1642 to 1650, he held various , at first in the provinces and then with the army of chief minister and, coming thus in Today, there are ‘Fuquas” living in nearly all of the United States, with concentrations existing along the main paths of migra-touch with the court, was permitted in 1650 to buy the important position of procureur général to the parlement of Paris. During tion from Virginia into the Southern and Western parts of the country.

Mazarin’s exile, Fouquet remained loyal to him, protecting his property and keeping him informed of the situation at court.

It has to be one of the characteristics of the human mind, that after we categorize and qualify, we have an opposite desire to Upon Mazarin’s return, Fouquet demanded and received as reward the office of superintendent of the finances (1653), a posi-unify: That after we identify various “branches,” we want to find the tree it came from – assuming there is one tree.

tion which, in the unsettled condition of the government, threw into his hands not merely the decision as to which funds should The families above have a great deal in common: they must have obviously come from the same root name; they have

be applied to meet the demands of the state’s creditors, but also the negotiations with the great financiers who lent money to the approximately the same pronounciation – depending on which spelling and which interpretation of the French you choose; they king. The appointment was a popular one with the moneyed class, for Fouquet’s great wealth had been largely augmented by his are all of French origin; and the religion associated with each is Huguenot. They also all are French by way of England, and they marriage in 1651 to Marie de Castille, who belonged to a wealthy family of the legal nobility in Spain.

all ended up in Virginia – contemporaneous in time, and located in the same places.

His own credit, and above all his unfailing confidence in himself, strengthened the credit of the government, while his high The most likely answer to the question: Are they all part of the same family? is “yes” – probably 100 years before their arrival position at the parlement (he still remained procureur général) secured financial transactions from investigation. As minister of in the American colonies. Were they mistaken for each other or actually were considered part of the same family after they got finance, he soon had Mazarin almost in the position of a supplicant. The long wars, and the greed of the courtiers, who followed here? Probably not. It the study of this genealogy has taught me anything, it is that families maintain their own identities until the example of Mazarin, made it necessary at times for Fouquet to meet the demands upon him by borrowing upon his own credit, such time in the future when they want to “regain” their supposedly common “heritage.”

but he soon turned this confusion of the public purse with his own to good account.

That there are currently families and family associations bearing these names tells me they have not “mixed and mingled.”

The disorder in the accounts became hopeless; fraudulent operations were entered into with impunity, and the financiers were Still, it’s a curiosity that, by the middle of the 18th century, there were so many Fouquets, Fuquas, etc. etc. – and most of kept in the position of clients by official favours and by generous aid whenever they needed it. Fouquet’s fortune now surpassed them all in Virginia.

even Mazarin’s, but the latter was too deeply implicated in similar operations to interfere, and was obliged to leave the day of The larger question it begs is: What was the nature of Huguenot communities in England, and later in America? Were there reckoning to his agent and successor .

Huguenot settlements beyond the one usually recognized in New Rochelle, NY? Did the ties that bind these families in France, His closest friend, and maybe mistress, was Suzanne de , the .

St. Martin’s in London, and in trans-Atlantic commerce, keep them together, at least for a time, on this side of the ocean? To what extent did their anti-Catholicism contribute to and/or help them incorporate themselves with the Virginia “Cavalier” culture upon

Francis Fauquier

and after their arrival – and did their strong position vis a vis religion have something to do with their departure from England and their choice of Virginia?

(1703 – 3 March 1768) was a of (in what is today the ), and served as from 1758 until his death in 1768. He was married to Catherine Dalston.

New Haven Puritans

He was a noted friend of . As royal governor of Virginia, Fauquier often hosted lavish parties where Jefferson (then a student) played his violin and drank imported wines. in is named in his honor. Also, due to his connection to several prominent members Soon after Inez and I were married we went to the State Historical Library in Connecticut to search for her ancestors. We went (both student and faculty) of , a building and a secret society () on the campus are named for him.

there as a lark - but found what we still remember to be:

Fauquier was born in . His father, Dr. John Francis Fauquier, born in , relocated to to work with . Dr. Fauquier later became director of the .

Like his father, Fauquier was brought up to be a renaissance man with expertise in both science and industry, with interests John and Sarah Ffuggate and 3 children. 1639.

in the arts and charity. He became director of the in 1751. In that same year he also became one of the governors of the charitable for abandoned children. He was elected a in 1753.

New Haven Colony!

He came to the colony of Virginia as Lieutenant Governor in 1758 succeeding , and remained in that position until his death.

We had done no research prior to that, except for my conversations with Old Rob Fugate. Then came 20 years of detailed work in In the absence of the governors—the (1756–63) and (1763–68)—he was the chief administrative officer. Instructions sent with which these five people never turned up again – except that the “Fugate Family Newsletter” notes that a Fugate is found listed in him demanded that the office of of the be taken from the of the , but he disobeyed these instructions and gained and maintained

“The First Families of New England” – a book I have never located, nor have I seen other references to it.

the friendship of the house. In 1760 he informed the of the trend toward opposition to British policies in the colony and proposed When we went back to the Library 20 years later, the book was gone. Like the “Book of Mormon” it had either been an hal-that British tax policy be changed. In 1765, however, he dissolved the when it passed a resolution against the . was a thorn in lucination or a miracle that we had been allowed to see the volume before it had disappeared in a fire, as the librarian vaguely Fauquier’s side for some time; he always called Henry “young and hotheaded”.

recalled. We contacted the The New Haven Historical Society who directed us to their own historian, Dr. Shumway. Shumway Except in combating disloyalty, he sympathized with the colonists, and was one of the ablest and most popular of the royal scoffed at the name as ever being part of the New Haven records (Shumway, like so many of the people I contact died shortly governors. He published several financial essays, among them Raising Money for Support of the War.

after I commicated with him).

Fauquier died in Virginia in 1768 at the age of 65.

He said he had never heard of the name. There had been a Thomas Fugill who owned where West Rocks Tunnel is now; and

he was excommunicated by the New Haven Colony and sent back to England for assigning himself more land than he was sup-

Fuqua Family in America

posed to. We have called the tunnel under West Rocks, “The Fugill Funnel” ever since.

Fugill did return to the colony in the 1660s, and apparently was scorned.

had its origins in Colonial Virginia. The vast majority (but not all) of “Fuquas” have descended from a single immigrant who Did he change his name and hop a boat to Maryland?

lived in Virginia.

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