Harry W. Havemeyer

The Ancestral Lines of James Edward Aiguier Harry W. Havemeyer

James Edward Aiguier was born in New York City. He was educated there and later in Philadelphia at the Evans Institute of the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine. He would become a leading figure in his profession. This is the story of his paternal ancestry descending from four immigrants: Joshua Carter and Zechariah Field, both English Puritans, and Jean Francois Arnoux and Jean Baptiste Aiguier, both from the south of France. They and their offspring lived in the heart of the American story from 1630 to 1977 in the midst of important moments in its history. Carter and Field's great grandson John Carter at the age of nine was kidnapped by the French-led expedition to raid Deerfield, Massachusetts, in 1704. He was taken to Montreal, educated by an order of monks, and became a citizen in New France with a new name, Jean Chartier. Another immigrant, Jean François Arnoux, a surgeon on a French navy frigate, sailed with Admiral de Grasse to Yorktown in 1781 to assist the United States defeat the British in that famous battle. Injured in the battle, Arnoux remained in the new country, made his way to Montreal, Canada, to marry the granddaughter of Jean Chartier. Their daughter Mary Cecile would marry French immigrant Jean Baptiste Aiguier in 1816 and raise a family in New York City. Their great grandson was James Edward Aiguier born in 1883, died in 1977.