John Paul Vogt was born ca 1680 in Frankfurt, Germany. He married Maria Catharina some time between 1704 and 1714. Their children were Catharina Margret, Mary Catherina, John Andrew, and John Caspar. All six arrived at Philadelphia in October 1733. The only German name on the ship's roster that was later associated with John Paul Vogt was Burger. Spellings for the Vogt name in the old records include Vaught (perhaps the most common form today), Vaut, Vought, Vot, Faut, Faught, Fought, Wacht, Wocht, Nacht, and Bellfaut. Apparently John Paul insisted on using both of his given names, i.e., John Paul, which confused the listener.
John Paul moved almost immediately to the Germanna community for he was allowed a patent for land in 1735. This land was in the northeast part of modern Madison Co., Virginia on Deep Run. His neighbor to the south was Christian Clements, who married one of John Paul's two daughters. Which one is not certain, since she was called Catherine.
John Paul and his wife Mary Catherine sold 170 acres, part of the original patent, to William Caul on 7 Jul 1744. In the same year he also sold 470 acres, the rest of the patent to John Thomas for five shillings. [This is probably one of those troublesome sales which was written in two parts, the first as a lease for five shillings and the second as a release.] Late in that same year, he appears to have moved to the Massannuten Mountain area in the Shenandoah Valley, where he purchased 400 acres of David Logan. Next year, he patented land on a draft of the North River of the Shenandoah.
Christian Clements patented land on the southeast side of the South River in 1746. The two men had a joint survey run on land on South River.
John Paul died at his home in 1761. (When he moved there, the county was Orange. When he died, it was Augusta and today it is Rockingham.) His will was written 9 Oct 1759, and was proved 18 Aug 1761. His estate sale was dated 10 Sep 1761. Besides the sons, Andrew and Gaspar, only one daughter, the one who married Christian Clements, is mentioned in the will. It is assumed that the other daughter died without issue prior to October 1759, the date of the will.
[These notes are taken from "Descendants of Christly Vaught," 429 page spiral bound book which was in the evolutionary stage. The compilers were Helen Spurlin and her sister Mickey Martin. Since a series of articles by Helen appeared in Beyond Germanna, about eight years ago, she has died. It was my pleasure to have met Helen on several occasions. One word that comes to mind to describe her was exuberant.]
(A note here from the curator of these web pages: John has alluded several times in these "Notes" to the variations in spelling and pronunciation of German names, and I thought it might be of help if I offered a little explanation. In the German language, the letter "V" is pronounced as "F". Therefore, it is easy to see how the German name VOGT could easily be transliterated into the English FAUT or FAUGHT or FOUGHT. Just remember that the German "V" is pronounced as "F", and the German "W" is pronounced as "V". Thus, the German "Wilhelm Vogt", would be pronounced "Vilhelm Faut".)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.