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Alfred C. Bragonier 1842-1911

A Thumbnail Biography by David C. Procuniar

Alfred C. Bragonier, the son of Jacob Bragonier & Anna Aughinbaugh. Alfred served as Captain A. C. Bragonier during the Civil War and was listed among the original field staff and company officers of Maryland's Seventh Regiment of Infantry. He was Captain of Company "G". Alfred was discharged from the service on April 7, 1863 at Baltimore Maryland and was discharged because of an illness! He was appointed from Frederick County. He was also a Charter member in 1881 of the Middletown Lodge No. 19, A.O.U. W. & the Lodge officer financier.

Alfred invented a Boiler Scalene Cleaner which he patented and started the A. C. Bragonier & Co. in 1894. His son Reginald took over A. C.'s business & later gave it a new name.

At the age of 18 Alfred was married to Elizabeth Rebecca McGee by the Rev. George Diel, a Lutheran minister. Elizabeth was an orphan who was under the guardianship of a well-to-do farmer of the vicinity named Miller. According to the account written in 1960 by one of their daughters, Alfred and Elizabeth met at a county fair, ran away to be married, and thereby Elizabeth sacrificed whatever financial support Elizabeth might have continued to receive from Mr. Miller! Alfred settled in Middletown, Frederick County Maryland where Alfred worked as a shoemaker! In Middletown Alfred opened a small store and began to experiment with inventions, securing patents for a window shutter for passenger trains, a one-man streetcar an indoor collapsible clothes drier, and a gas meter checker! When he discovered a new method for breaking down crude oil and recovering lubricants he moved his family to Glynden, Baltimore County, Maryland where he began to manufacture lubricating oils. Several years later he and his family moved to Baltimore where he established a residence at 2410 Madison Avenue, and the firm of A. C. Bragonier & Co. in which his twenty year old son Reginald bought an interest in 1894.

The following year he secured a patent for an improvement in "Devices for preventing the Incrustation of Boilers". After a severe illness, during which she was removed to Frederick for treatment, his wife died on November 12, 1897, at the home of her daughter, Mrs. James B. Aubert. Five years later at the age of 60 Alfred remarried to Victoria Royerston on June 10, 1902 in Baltimore Md. Alfred's business was wiped out in the famous Baltimore Fire of 1904 at 204 Buchanan Wharf, but his son Reginald built it up again at another location into a prosperous concern through the manufacture of "Scalene" a cleaner for boilers!! Captain Bragonier died in Baltimore, MD on August 7, 1911 and was buried in Middletown in the Christ Reform Church Cemetery!! REF: "Names in Stone" Vol I by Holdcraft

Children:

Alfred Bragonier 1860-

Carrie May Bragunier 1861- married Charles Picking

Nellie McGee Bragunier 1864-1932 married Frank Daiger;

One child Adelaide Daiger (1890) Adeliade married John Ahalt

Sarah Ann Rebecca Bragonier 1866- married James B. Aubert

one son Frederick Bragonier Aulbert who married Rebecca Wellman

Alfred Clinton Bragunier 1867-

James Bragunier 1868-1929

Samuel Miller Bragunier 1870-1872

Katherine Belle Bragonier 1871-1967 married John W. Lewis (1870-1950)

Oscar Ruperly Bragunier 1873-1923

Reginald Bragonier 1874-1944

Edith Valerie Bragunier 1876-

Fred Tyler Bragonier 1877-

Bertha Adelia Bragonier 1880-1942

Sources:

The Bragonier Family by Georgiana H. Randall 1969.

The Bragunier Family in America by Brittian Bragunier Robinson 1969

First Reformed Church of Hagerstown Maryland church records on LDS micro-film

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