♂Estanislao Antonio Croquer de Los Cameros e Imbott

Estanislao Antonio Croquer de Los Cameros e Imbott (about 1722 – 22 December 1772) was a Spaniard in colonial Guatemala, named as “Estanislas” in the Louisiana register of his son Raphael’s marriage in 1803. A biographical dictionary of Central America calls him the founder of the Croquer family in Guatemala and describes him as alcalde mayor, the royal official who governed a district, of the province of Amatitlán and Sacatepéquez from 1753 to 1773. He was the fourth great-grandfather of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), through his son Raphael Croquer (1753–1834).

Life in Guatemala

The dictionary, the Diccionario Biográfico Centroamericano of the Asociación para el Fomento de los Estudios Históricos en Centroamérica, holds an entry by the historian Christophe Belaubre on one of his sons, don Antonio Croquer y Muñoz, a priest who became rector of the University of San Carlos^W and a canon of the cathedral of Guatemala. The entry gives the father’s birth year as 1722 and says that he came to Guatemala from Puerto Real, near Cádiz, about 1748, to serve as maestre de campo^W of the militias of Sololá, before holding the office of alcalde mayor^W of Amatitlán and Sacatepéquez. The entry’s own sources are closed to the public, and no register is known to confirm these details.

He married Maria Ana Muñoz y Barba de Figueroa. The dictionary names three of their children: don Antonio, born at Santiago de Guatemala on 23 March 1765; don Julián; and doña María Josefa. It does not mention Raphael, who went to Louisiana, so its list is not a full account of the family. An index of Guatemalan marriage records also names a daughter, Maria Gertrudis Croquer Muñoz, born at Antigua, who married Carlos Josef Yudice in Guatemala on 15 April 1780, and the entry names both parents. The tie to Raphael rests on the Louisiana register: his marriage at St. Gabriel in Iberville on 12 September 1803 calls him “of Guatemala” and names his parents as Estanislas and Maria Ana Muñoz, and the register abstract of the 1809 baptism of Raphael’s own son names “Stanislas” as the child’s paternal grandfather. Two independent sources, a Louisiana parish register and a Guatemalan scholarly dictionary, thus describe the same couple.

Death

His death is given as 22 December 1772 at Santiago de Guatemala, the colonial capital now called Antigua Guatemala, but no record of it has been found. The cathedral parish’s burial book for Spaniards, covering 1761 to 1784, contains no entry for him in December 1772 or January 1773. The dictionary’s years for his office run to 1773, past that date of death, and the records do not settle the difference.

Notes

His parents are not known from any record. The dictionary names them as Francisco Felipe Croquer de los Cameros y Pérez Marcotegui and Ignacia Francisca Beatriz de Imboth y Andrade, but no register confirms them, and no record of his baptism at Puerto Real is known. The dictionary also contradicts itself on his marriage, giving 19 March 1750 at Santiago de Guatemala in one place and 1753 in another. In the Louisiana records the surname is written Croker as well as Croquer.