Nicolás Durán y Cháves

  Noted events in his life and other information:

• Dates & Events: ²⁵²
El Paso del Norte, Nuevo Méjico, Nuevo España. After being driven out of New Mexico by the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, New Mexican families settled in El Paso. Some of them came back to New Mexico after the reconquest of New Mexico by Don Diego de Vargas.
Nicilás was probably a small child when his parents returned to New Mexico.

Nicolas Durán y Cháves was twenty-four and a resident of Atrisco when he had at least one natural child, already four years old in 1714, when he decided to marry the boys mother, Juana Montaño of Santa Fe. She was the sister of two other Montaño girls, Magdalena and Leonor, who married Nicolás' brothers, Antonio and Luis. The Durán y Cháves brothers were second cousins of the Montaño sisters.

~Origins of New Mexico Families, pg. 163

• He signed a will on 9 May 1768 in Los Padillas, Nuevo, Méjico, Nueva España. ²⁵²
Nicolas signed his last will and testament on May 19, 1768.

He made his last will on May 19, 1768, in which he gave the names of his parents and of his wife, followed by his eight sons and five daughters: Jose, Gertrudis, Bernardo, Luis, Fernando, Isabel, Antonio, Maria Francisca, Maria Antonia, Juan, Vicente, Maria and Francisco. Of the girls, Gertrudis married Francisco Silva and Maria Antonia married Tadeo Romero and later a Domingo Baca.

The sons are as follows: Jose married Luisa de Aragon, February 3, 1732; Bernardo married an apacha, Maria Benavides, and then his first cousin's widow, Maria Josefa Nunez; Luis married Eduarda Yturrieta, April 20, 1747; Fernando married Antonia Sanchez and Francisco married Maria Gertrudis Alvarez de Castillo, April 6, 1756.
~~Origins of New Mexico Families, pg. 163

• Information: ³¹²
In 1719 Nicolás acted as a pre-nuptial witness giving his age as twenty-six, hence born at El Paso del Norte around the year 1686. He was the sixth son of Don Fernando, and also residing with the family in Atrisco when he took the third on of the Montaño sisters to wife. Her name was Juana Montaño. This took place on July 20, 1714, when they already had at least one boy who was four years old. It had taken her that much more time to get her Cháves man. It could also have been a turbulent union for a time, since once, after he gave her a beating, she tried walking all the way to her own folks in Santa Fé before Nicolás caught up with her at Bernalillo. Yet they managed to produce a very large family of which we have a complete list, thanks to the extant will which he drew up on May 19, 1768. In it he stated the names of his parents, his wife, and the following eight sons and four daughters according to their ages: José, Gertrudis, Bernardo, Luís, Fernanado, Isabel, Antonio, María Antonia, Juan, Vicente, María and Francisco.
~Chávez, A Distinctive American Clan of New Mexico, pg. 131

• Land Grant. ⁴⁸²
Don Nicolas Durán y Cháves was the founder of the community of los Cháves. He was the Alcalde of Alburquerque and a resident of Atrisco at the time, 1738, he made an application for a land grant to Governor Gaspar Domingo de Mendoza. This request was granted in 1739 to Don Nicolás.

In his petition for the grant, he told the governor, that he was a descendant of the original Chábes family and the son of Don Fernando Durán y Chábes, who was a a captain with Governor Diego de Vargas during the reconquest of New México in 1693.

Don Nicolás Cháves said that he had a large family, consisting of nine sons. He told the governor that he had sheep and cattle and no place to pasture them in the Atrisco area where he lived. He had established a small for in the Los Cháves area to protect his family and sheepherders from the wild marauding Indians, at great danger to his life and the safety of his family.

The goundaries of the land grant were, on the east by the Río Grande, on the north by land of Captain Bernabe Baca and the ruins of the home of Tomé Dominguez, the west by the Rio Puerco and the south by Los Esteros (swamp) de San Pablo (later called Sausal).
~Río Abajo, pgs.41-42

• Census: Spanish, 1750, Sitio de Gutiérres, Nuevo Méjico, Nueva España. ²⁷⁰
Don Nicolás de Chábes; wife, Juana Montaño; five children: juan, María Antonia, Vicente, María, Francisco; servants: Rosa, widow, Andrés, Miguel, Christóbal; orpahns: Juan, Josepha, Juana.
~Spanish Census of 1750, pg. 93

Nicolás married Juana Montaño de Sotomayor, daughter of Juan Antonio Montaño de Sotomayor and Ysabel Jorge de Vera, on 20 Jul 1714 in Santa Fé, Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico, Nueva España ²⁵².^,311 (Juana Montaño de Sotomayor was born in 1691 in Guadalupe del Paso, Nuevo Méjico. Nueva España and died on 16 Sep 1768 in Atrisco, Nuevo Méjico, Bernilillo Nueva España.)