The Yankee Spragues of Gibraltar
[Molly Bloom, thinking of Gibraltar.] "... and old Sprague the consul that was there from before the flood dressed up poor man and he in mourning for the son ..."
n/ Ulysses (Gabler) 18:683-84.
The Sprague family of Malden and Boston, Massachusetts provided three generations of US Consuls in Gibraltar. Horatio Sprague, the first of his family in Gibraltar, held that office 1832-1848, his son Horatio Jones 1848-1901, and his grandson Richard 1901-1932.
The Sprague Consuls in Gibraltar
A Massachusetts Puritan Family
The distant, English ancestors of the Sprague consuls include Ralph Sprague and Joanna Warren who married 1628 in Fordington, Dorset. The following year, the couple moved to Charlestown, Massachusetts as the Massachusetts Bay Colony had granted Ralph an 80-acre homestead there. Ralph's brothers, Richard and William, also received colonial land grants in Charlestown. Joanna's father, Richard Warren, was a grazier; Ralph's father, Edward Sprague, was a wool processor who owned a fulling mill in Upwey, Dorset. Note that the Spragues arrived in New England nine years after the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock.
Sprague Fulling Mill in Upwey, England
Sprague, Sprague Families in America, 1913.
In Charlestown, Ralph Sprague cleared his land, worked the farm, and held offices in the Bay Colony's government (the General Court). He also joined the volunteer corps known as "The Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts." That part-time formation was modelled on "The Honourable Artillery Company of London," chartered by Henry VIII in 1537. The Massachusetts "Honorables" are mentioned by Joyce in the "Circe" episode of Ulysses. Ralph Sprague died in 1650 owning 240 acres of land and was survived by Joanna, four sons, and one daughter. The widow then married Edward Converse and lived another thirty years.
Ralph's brother Richard became an international trader and captained his own merchant vessel. His business thrived and he acquired a great deal of real estate (agricultural, commercial, and industrial) plus several ships. Richard was also a lieutenant of the Honorable Artillery Company. He died in 1668 leaving an estate valued at £2,398 (Ralph's estate was £742). He was survived by his English-born wife, Mary. The couple were childless and their nieces and nephews eventually received the residual of Richard's estate. Ralph's other brother, William, married into the landed Eames family of Hingham, 12 miles southeast of Boston. At his death in 1675, William "possessed a large landed estate." He was survived by his colonist wife, Millicent, and eight children.
n/ George Walter Chamberlain, The Spragues of Malden Massachusetts (Boston: Chamberlain, 1923), 21-34, 47-72; Warren Vincent Sprague, Sprague Families in America (Rutland, VT: Sprague, 1913), 116-27; Ulysses (Gabler) 15:4453; Edward G. Sprague, The Ralph Sprague Genealogy (Montpelier, VT: Sprague, 1913), 25-29; Henry Harrison Sprague, The Founding of Charlestown (Boston: Clarke, 1910), 26-32.
Colonial North America, 17th Century
MacCoun's Historical Geography of the United States, 1892 - Library of Congress.
Massachusetts Bay Area, 1639
Digitized by the Boston Public Library (enhanced by webmaster).
(Click on map for item page on the Boston Library's website.)
Ralph and Joanna's eldest child, Jonathan, was an innkeeper who died in 1730 at age 75. Jonathan was a great-great-grandfather of Horatio Sprague, the first Sprague to serve as US consul in Gibraltar. Their other sons, in addition to farming, engaged in diverse pursuits such as captaining merchant vessels, grain milling, and selling goods, both wholesale and retail. These early Spragues were among the Bay Colony's leading citizens. They were landowners who held colonial and municipal offices and were officers of the Honorable Artillery Company or local militias.
n/ Chamberlain, The Spragues of Malden, 110-40; Sprague, The Ralph Sprague Genealogy, 31-36.
There were three generations of Spragues before the birth of Horatio in 1784. First was Joseph Sprague (1691-1738), son of the innkeeper Jonathan and his wife Mary (née Bunker). Surviving documents describe Joseph as a saddler; however, he likely owned a saddlery business as well as farm land. In 1714, he married Sarah Stedman. The couple took up residence in Cambridge, just north of Boston. Their son John Sprague (1718-1797) was the first of Horatio's moneyed, Boston ancestors. He was a graduate of Harvard College (est. 1636) and studied medicine under the French-born Dr. Louis Delhonde. In 1745, John married Dr. Delhonde's daughter, Elizabeth. John developed an "extensive and lucrative practice" across the Charles River in Boston. At the time, Boston was British North America's largest city with 15,000 inhabitants; however, in terms of trade it ranked behind New York and Philadelphia. Dr. Sprague invested his earnings in various business and land ventures and at his death had "accumulated a princely fortune." His gross estate ($250,000) consisted of $71,694 in real estate, $15,347 bank deposits, $103,441 US Treasuries, $56,007 loans receivables, and $3,614 in personal effects. Based on consumer price changes, the 2022 equivalent value of Sprague's estate is $6.0 - $12.0 million. In terms of comparative wages (earnings of factory workers in 1800 v. 2022), the estate is about $100 million.
n/ Sprague, The Ralph Sprague Genealogy, 50, 68; Inventory, Estate of John Sprague, Norfolk Co., MA Probate File Papers, No. 17243A; website of the Measuring Worth Foundation, www.measuringworth.com.
John Sprague, Jr. (1752-1800), like his father, was a Harvard graduate and medical doctor. He studied medicine in Europe and in 1773 married Rebecca Chambers. The sixth of their eight children was Horatio, born 1784. Dr. Sprague died of tuberculosis three years after the death of his father. At the time, Horatio Sprague was aged sixteen. Young Horatio had a well-to-do father as this Dr. Sprague's estate was valued at $74,000 of which real estate accounted for $61,000. The younger Doctor Sprague died intestate (as did his father) and the Probate Court appointed his widow and the merchant Samuel Swett co-administrators of the estate. Under Massachusetts law, Rebecca, as surviving spouse, received one-third of Dr. Sprague's real estate, while the seven surviving children received equal shares in the rest.
n/ Sprague, The Ralph Sprague Genealogy, 90; Inventory, Estate of John Sprague II, Norfolk Co., MA Probate File Papers, No. 17244A.
To view the family tree of the first Gibraltar Sprague, Horatio, click on the link and an image on Major Tweedy's Neighborhood will open in a popup window. The family tree was prepared by Martine Janssen and appears on the genealogy website, Geneanet.
North America, 1750
From Millar's Map of North America, 1755 - Library of Congress.
(Click on map for item page on the Library of Congress website.
North American Cities, 1750
Population | Population | ||||
1 | Quebec | 48,000 | 5 | Philadelphia | 12,700 |
2 | Halifax | 2,600 | 6 | Charleston | * 10,000 |
3 | Boston | 15,800 | 7 | St. Augustine | 1,750 |
4 | New York | 13,300 | * Half slaves. |
Sources: John R. Dunkle, "Population Changes as an Element in the Historical Geography of St. Augustine," The Florida Historical Quarterly 37, No. 1 (July 1958): 3-32; Jacob M. Price, "Economic Function and Growth of American Port Towns in the Eighteenth Century," Perspectives in American History 8 (1974): 123-86; Emma Hart, Building Charleston (Charlottesville: Univ. of Virginia Press, 2010).
Horatio Sprague
New England's Spragues, 18th & 19th Centuries
The three Sprague brothers who arrived in New England's Puritan colony were remembered locally as the founders of Charlestown (Malden). Their descendants, though not "Boston Brahmins," on the social ladder were just a rung below that lofty group. Spragues socialized with, and married into, Boston's super-elite. One example is Charles Franklin Sprague (1857-1902), a distant descendant of William through his son Samuel (1640-1710) and his wife Sarah Chillingworth. Charles graduated from Harvard Law School then practiced in the Boston area. In 1891, he married Mary Pratt, who had inherited $20 million from her grandfather, the Boston Brahmin William F. Weld. The New York Times described the two as "allied with Boston's oldest families." Two years after marriage, Charles Sprague entered politics and secured appointed and elected municipal offices. In 1897, he was elected Republican Congressman for the 11th District, MA (West Roxbury). Note that his grandfather, Peleg Sprague, was a US Senator for Maine. With his personal fortune of $10 million and his wife's, Charles Sprague was known as "the richest man to sit in the Halls of Congress." Sprague died in office of a "hopeless" neurological disorder from which he suffered for many years. His widow, one of the country's richest young women, remarried two years after Charles' death.
n/ Sprague, The Founding of Charlestown; Sprague, Sprague Families in America, 131, 325; New York Times - November 26, 1891, January 31, 1902, February 6, 1902, November 14, 1904.
Other noted descendants of William Sprague are the brothers Amasa (1798-1843) and William III (1799-1856). Their distant ancestors were the colonist William's son William, Jr. (1650-1723) and his wife Deborah Lane. Amasa and his brothers became rich through their textile manufacturing firm A & W Sprague, headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island. The company had five mills, one being the world's largest calico textile printing mill. Amasa ran the business while his brother pursued a political career. William Sprague III was elected governor of Rhode Island and afterwards represented the state in the Senate. Amasa was murdered on the street in 1843 and the crime was never solved. William soon gave up politics to manage the family business.
Amasa's youngest son, William Sprague IV (1830-1915), was also a Rhode Island Governor and US senator. He gained some notoriety through his 1863 marriage to Katherine Chase (1840-1899), daughter of Salmon P. Chase, President Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury. Kate was a noted, Washington socialite and the press dubbed her "the Belle of the North." The marriage ended nineteen years later in divorce grounded on adultery. William believed Kate was unfaithful to him since at least 1872. Note that in 1879, there was the well-publicized incident in which Sprague, armed with a shotgun, confronted Kate and US Senator Roscoe Conkling at the Spragues' summer home. William allegedly chased Conkling from the house and threatened to throw Kate out a second-story window.
The Rhode Island Spragues were the richest family in the state. A & W Sprague had 10,000 employees, and the Spragues other holdings included a tram line and metal fabricator, plus manufacturers of stoves, farm implements, and nails. The Panic of 1873 triggered the failure of the Sprague businesses which fell into the hands of creditors.
n/ Sprague, Sprague Families in America, 135, 212, 299; Peg A. Lamphier, Kate Chase and William Sprague (Lincoln, NE: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2003); "One of the Most Romantic Characters at the Capital," New York Times, August 27, 1899; Catalog, William Sprague Papers, Rhode Island Historical Society.
While Horatio Sprague's close relations did not breathe the rarified air that sustained the Brahmins, they were rich and part of "Boston Society." Boston Society of about 1840 through 1950 was a peculiar geographic subset of the United States population. It was written of by many novelists, most notably Henry James. The modern author, South African-born Errol Lincoln Uys, describes Boston Society through a comment on the life of American historian Henry Adams:
"Dissensions of inbred Calvinism in conflict with the encroachment of materialism; resistance between natural man and a stingy, hostile universe. Story of a man surviving in a world where joys are few, his greatest being the pleasure of learning to love to hate. The shadow of Cromwell still loomed, resistance to something was still the law of the land, and we live through Henry Adams, the dilemma of an 18th century Bostonian standing in the 19th century with one foot stepping precariously to the 20th."
n/ Writer's Notes of Errol Lincoln Uys for Scollay Square, erroluys.com/Boston/WorkingNotesScollaySquare.htm.
Young Horatio Sprague
On the death of his father, 16-year-old Horatio Sprague became beneficiary of $20,000 in life insurance proceeds plus estate distributions of $657 cash, a 450 acre farm, and 7 acres of marsh land. His property would be held in trust by court-appointed guardians until he attained age 21. Young Horatio was not academically inclined as unlike his grandfather, father, and brother Lawrence, did not attend Harvard College. He became the protege of Samuel Sweet, only 10 years his senior, who was co-administrator of Dr. John's estate. The Swetts and Spragues had a close business and personal relationship. Both Samuel and his father William had investment dealings with John Sprague, Jr. In 1797, Samuel had married Horatio's sister Esther. After Esther died two years later from childbirth complications, Samuel married another of Horatio's sisters, Elizabeth. (For a graphic on the families' relationship, click here and it will open from this website in a popup window.)
Samuel Swett became one of New England's leading merchants and shipowners and played a prominent part in the development of the merchant marine in Boston. A few of his earliest ships are the Henry & Francis, Tyger, Edward Foster, and Fortuna. He would also acquire extensive real estate in Boston and Dedham.
n/ Administration Papers, Estate of John Sprague II, Norfolk County, MA Probate File Papers, No. 17244A; Guardianship Papers, Norfolk County, MA Probate File Papers, No. 17242A; Ben H. Swett, "Swett Families in South America," John Swett of Newbury at www.swett-genealogy.com; Catalog Entry, Samuel Swett Papers, American Antiquarian Society.
When Horatio came of legal age in 1805, he was a well-off, if not rich, young man. His inheritance, based on consumer price changes, was equivalent to $600,000 in 2022; $10-18 million based on comparative wages.
In July 1810, 26-year-old Horatio was in business as a merchant and commission agent with a facility at No. 6, Swett Wharf. He also maintained a business relationship with his former mentor, Samuel Swett. At the beginning of 1811, Horatio must have decided to leave Boston as he put up for lease his inherited real estate, "Sprague's Farm" located 11 miles southwest of Boston near Dedham.* In October 1811, Horatio Sprague gave public notice that he would soon relocate to Gibraltar "to establish himself in the Commission Business, under the recommendation of Mr. Samuel Swett."
* Dr. John Sprague, Sr. acquired the beginnings of the farm in about 1755 when he purchased 144 acres of land from Peter Luce. In 1771, Dr. Sprague's Dedham farm, with 5 horses, 60 goats and sheep, 23 cows, and 8 oxen, was worked by 4 slaves. At the time, 14 slaves lived in Dedham Township. During the 18th century, Boston's wealthy merchants purchased nearby farms, equipped them with the latest agricultural technology, and then operated the improved properties with slave labor. Jared Ross Hardesty, "Creating an Unfree Hinterland," Early American Studies 15, No. 1 (Winter 2017): 37-62.The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, in three decisions between 1781 and 1783, held slavery unlawful. The 1790 census recorded no slaves in Massachusetts. Massachusetts Court System, Massachusetts Constitution and the Abolition of Slavery, www.mass.gov/guides/massachusetts-constitution-and-the-abolition-of-slavery.
n/ Website of the Measuring Worth Foundation; Advertisements, Boston Gazette, July 5, 1810 through October 3, 1811; Advertisement, Boston Gazette, October 3, 1811.
Horatio Sprague, Gibraltar Merchant
In November 1811, Horatio Sprague arrived in Gibraltar. Seven months later, the United States declared war on the United Kingdom. Sprague likely opposed the war as the US Federalist Party, whose stronghold was New England, was vocally anti-war. Note that no Federalist in Congress voted for the declaration of war which was signed by President Madison on June 18, 1812. The governor of Gibraltar expelled the enemy alien Sprague who took up residence across the bay in Algeciras, Spain. Though a US citizen, Governor Don allowed Sprague frequent visits to Gibraltar to look after his business. The Treaty of Ghent, signed December 24, 1814, ended the War of 1812 and Sprague returned to Gibraltar.
Sprague's first residence in Gibraltar was a large house on the north side of Cathedral Square. Five years later, he relocated to 34 Prince Edward's Road, which would be home to three generations of Spragues and house the US Consulate for nearly 80 years. The location of his homes is denoted by US shields in the graphic on the right. The Cathedral Square property was incorporated into the adjacent Bristol Hotel and both former Sprague homes still stand in Gibraltar.
n/ Neville Chipulina, "The Sprague Family - One Century of Service," see link at bottom of page; Gibraltar Census, 1834.
Horatio Sprague prospered as a merchant and ship owner. He also helped expand Samuel Swett's business. Note that in the 1820s, Swett sent three of his sons abroad (to Chile, Ecuador, and Cadiz, Spain). Sprague probably visited Horatio Harrison Swett in Cadiz though their relationship wouldn't have lasted long; Swett died in 1830 at age 25.
n/ Chipulina, "The Sprague Family;" Samuel Swett Papers; Swett, "Swett Families of South America."
Sprague, while living in Algeciras, became known to the Boston public for assisting US nationals while the US and UK were at war. Note that the US Consul in Gibraltar was a locally born, British subject who found no reason to assist Americans when he no longer was their legal representative. As an unofficial US representative, Sprague worked to free US merchant seamen kidnapped by Barbary Pirates and sold into slavery, most notably Captain Smith of Salem, MA and his crew. He also assisted US sailors of merchant ships seized by the British and brought to Gibraltar. Garrison authorities pressed into naval service American crewmen formerly of the Royal Navy, while the others, if they lacked money for passage home, were stranded in Gibraltar and subject to internment or arrest for vagrancy. For those in forced naval service, Sprague paid for legal assistance. For the others, he provided room and board and contacted their relatives to arrange for a voyage home. Note that Sprague rented a hulk anchored in Gibraltar harbor to accommodate Americans awaiting repatriation. Sprague, at his own expense, aided 150 US seamen many of whom stayed in Gibraltar for over a year. After the war ended and the former US Consul, wealthy merchant John Gavino, resumed his duties, Sprague continued to aid Americans in distress.
In 1820, the Massachusetts Humane Society awarded Sprague its Gold Medal for his $1,200 payment to free Captain James Riley and four of his eleven-man crew of the brig Commerce, shipwrecked in August 1815 on the Sahara Desert's western coast. The twelve seamen, aground 50 miles north of Cape Bojador, headed north on an arduous 450 mile trek towards the nearest Moroccan port, Mogador. On the way, one was murdered by local residents while the others were kidnaped by brigands and sold into slavery. Riley and four crewmen were purchased by a pair of Arabian merchants who intended to ransom them.
n/ Boston Gazette - September 13, 1813, March 28, 1814; Boston Daily Advertiser, June 23, 1815; The Yankee - July 28, 1815, September 1, 1815; History of the Humane Society of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (Boston: Humane Society, 1876), 56; James Riley, An Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the American Brig Commerce (New York: Mercein, 1817).
When Sprague returned to Gibraltar in early 1815, he met the French merchant Marie Flechelles, conducting business on the Rock and living there with two of her three children: 19-year-old Dominque Stanislas and 15-year-old Victoire Marguerite. Her eldest child, Victor, lived in Marseilles where he ran the Flechelles French establishment. Marie Flechelles had taken over her husband's trading business when he died in 1804. Barthelemy Flechelles, her husband, was a Mediterranean merchant who operated first in Toulon, then briefly in Tangier, and finally in Gibraltar.
The 32-year-old Horatio Sprague fell in love with Mrs. Flechelles under-aged daughter and the two wed on December 3, 1816, one month before Victoire's 17th birthday. Marie Flechelles must have been eager to hand off her daughter to the rich American as she sent Marie to him with a 27,000 fr. ($285) dowery. The following year, Dominique Flechelles married and joined his brother Victor in Marseilles. Marie Flechelles remained in Gibraltar where she and her domestic servants lived at 12 College Lane.
n/ Martine Janssen, "Horatio Sprague," Geneanet, www.geneanet.com; Fr. Jose Lopez, Vicar General of the Archbishop of Tangier, Baptismal Certification of Victoria Margarita Escolastica Flechelle, September 18, 1969; Victor Flechelles v. Victoire Sprague, Ledru-Rollin's Jurisprudence Francaise, 1846 Vol. I, 297-300; Gibraltar National Archives, Register of Inhabitants, 1816.
The marriage was unusual in that Boston Society abhorred Catholics and its members rarely married outside the Protestant faith. Horatio did not convert to Catholicism; however, his children were brought up as Roman Catholics.
The newlyweds moved into the previously mentioned large house at 34 Prince Edward's Road. In 1817, their first child was born: John Bartholomew Charles. Victoire Sprague would give birth to 10 more children, the last in 1837: Henry Elliott. The Gibraltar Census of 1834 shows living at the Sprague house the married couple, eight children, five domestic servants, and a wetnurse.
n/ Gibraltar National Archives, various census returns; Janssen, "Horatio Sprague."
Sprague Home (Old US Consulate), 2011
© 2022 Google.
Sprague was an initial shareholder of The Rock Fire Assurance Co., founded in 1841. He also purchased a farm in Spain, located between San Roque and Campamento. It was common for rich Gibraltarians to own Spanish property as in the summer, temperatures on the Rock could become almost intolerable. Come that season, they lived in extravagant country houses which they had built on their Spanish farms. Richard Ford, author of the multi-edition Handbook for Travellers in Spain, noted that by 1855, many English families also inhabited the southeast quarter of San Roque and describes that neighborhood as "snug and smug, with brass knockers on the doors, and glass windows." He also claims that the town's connecting road to La Linea was macadamized not by the Spanish, but the colonial government of Gibraltar.
Some of the Spanish rural estates owned by Gibraltarians had no working farm. They were just a mansion with garden situated on a large tract of pasture or woodland. The most notable such country estate was that of Francis Pasqual Francia (1829-1897) who called his summer home "Villa Francia." The house and garden were on land just north of Campamento that his father had purchased.
n/ Will of Horatio Sprague executed November 3, 1847, Estate of John Sprague, Norfolk Co., MA Probate File Papers, No. 22366; Advertisement of The Rock Fire Assurance Co., Gibraltar Directory, 1922; Christopher A. Grocott, "The Moneyed Class of Gibraltar, c. 1880-1939," PhD Thesis (Lancaster, 2007); Richard Ford, Handbook for Travellers in Spain, Part I, 3rd Ed. (London: Murray, 1855); E.F. Kelaart, Flora Calpensis (London: Van Voorst, 1846), 152, 182-84.s
Sprague Farm (green)
From War Office 3-Inch Map, 1905.
Sprague Hacienda Ruins
© 2022 Google Imagery, CNES/Airbus, Inst. de Cartografia de Andalucia, Maxar Technologies.
Horatio Sprague, US Consul
The first US Consul in Gibraltar was Andrew Gavino, born on the Rock to a Genoese merchant. Andrew was succeeded in office by his son John. Both were British subjects. In 1816, the State Department replaced Gavino with Bernard Henry, born in Savannah, Georgia. From 1800 through 1812, Henry was a naval officer; he resigned his commission when he married Mary Jackson of Philadelphia. During the War of 1812, Henry returned to naval service with the rank of captain. After the war, Bernard Henry became dissatisfied with life in Philadelphia and sought opportunities abroad.
For 16 years Henry was US Consul in Gibraltar. While there, he befriended the notable Americans James Biddle and Washington Irving. Henry became an Anglophile and about 1827, established a residence in London. His family soon lived there year-round and the Consul was frequently absent from Gibraltar. When Henry was not at his post, Richard McCale, his business partner and agent of the US Navy, managed consular matters.
n/ Neville Chipulina, "Mary Ashbourn - Infamous for its Filth," The People of Gibraltar; Gibraltar National Archives, Census Records; Ira Rosenwaike, "Bernard Henry: His Naval and Diplomatic Career," American Jewish History 69, No. 4 (June 1980); 488-96.
In 1832, the Secretary of State cashiered Bernard Henry for excessive absenteeism, then rampant in the consular service. He chose the well known and rich Horatio Sprague as Henry's replacement. "Sprague proved to be a conscientious officer, unlike his predecessor, although a review of the dispatches he sent over the years suggest that the Gibraltar consular job in those days did not often pose onerous demands. The consul's usual duties included answering questions on shipping and seamen, reporting health quarantines, the occasional repatriation of a destitute American, and required reporting." In 1846, Sprague got his first home leave and left the consulate in the hands of his son, Horatio Jones. Shortly thereafter, Sprague began to suffer from a chronic illness to which he succumbed on March 20, 1848.
n/ Henry E. Mattox, "The Spragues of Gibraltar: One Post, One Family, One Century," Foreign Service Journal (February 1993).
Victoire, known to English-speakers as "Victoria," outlived Horatio by 20 years. "She was well-known for her unostentatious benevolence and her charities were boundless, for she regarded affluence as a worthless possession unless subservient to the relief of poverty and distress. She was one of those rare persons who do good by stealth and blush to find fame."
n/ Unknown commentator, Watkins, The Sprague Family.
Horatio Jones Sprague
This was the "ancient" Sprague that Marion Tweedy (Molly Bloom) saw on the Gibraltar dock as she and her father, Major Brian Tweedy, sailed for Dublin in June 1886. Note that Sprague, at the time, would have been 63 years old. Horatio Jones was a partner in his father's businesses and upon the elder Horatio's death, succeeded to their ownership. The State Department appointed the junior Horatio to the now vacant Gibraltar consular post. He would serve for 53 years as US Consul for Gibraltar.
Horatio Jones Sprague was born in Gibraltar on August 12, 1823. He grew up on the Rock where he was schooled at home by governesses and tutors. Young Sprague had an aptitude for languages and became able to read, write, or speak French (learned from his mother), Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese. In 1854, 31-year-old Sprague married Antonia Francia of Gibraltar's notable Francia family. Like his father's wife, she was almost a child-bride being aged 17 at the time of marriage.
The Francias, descendants of Genoese immigrants who arrived in Gibraltar shortly after its Anglo-Dutch conquest, were among the richest of Gibraltar's merchants with business operations on the Rock and in the United States. They also owned Gibraltar's principal ship repair firm. Antonia, like her siblings, was born in New York City and accordingly, was both a US citizen and British subject. That the Francias were the creme de la creme of Gibraltar civil society is indicated by a Francia membership in the colony's most exclusive social organization: The Royal Calpe Hunt. The Hunt was founded in 1813 and its members were wealthy officers of the Garrison. Among the handful of native Gibraltarian members was Antonia's cousin Francis Francia. Another of Antonia's cousins, Joseph Francia, was the colony's first native barrister and in 1837, was the only non-British member of the exclusive Garrison Library.
n/ Horatio Jones Sprague, Application for Office, September 18, 1899, US National Archives 776899/103; Neville Chipulina's essays, links at the bottom of this page; E.G. Arthur, Gibraltar, Identity and Empire (New York: Routledge, 2006), 155-58.
Horatio Jones Sprague not only continued his father's businesses, but branched out into the tobacco trade. He became one of the colony's major tobacco importers, all of whom relied on sales to Spanish smugglers. L. Blond & Sons was Gibraltar's largest tobacco dealer; Francia Brothers & Co. the second largest. Horatio Sprague was the sixth largest dealer and his eldest son John the eleventh.
Unlike his father, Sprague had a heavy consular workload. This was due to the Suez Canal opening in 1870. The Canal allowed North American and European ships to reach Asia through the Mediterranean and avoid the long route around South Africa. Increased shipping through the Straits caused a dramatic increase in Gibraltar's coaling activity. Note also that Sprague looked after US regional interests during two wars: The American Civil War (1861-1865) and the Spanish-American War (1898). With the increased consular work, Sprague needed assistance. Accordingly, his son John served as Vice-Consul until his premature death in 1886. He was succeeded by his brother Richard. Another Sprague son, Horatio Louis, was briefly a consular clerk.
Antonia Francia
n/ Colonial Office, Return Relating to Tobacco Trade of Gibraltar, 1876, H.C. Accounts & Papers, No. 435; Mattox, "The Spragues of Gibraltar."
Horatio and Antonia were active socially among the colony's well-to-do. Parties, dinners, and balls at the Sprague home not only attracted Gibraltar's elite, but their Spanish counterparts in Algeciras and San Roque. Always in attendance at these events were officers of the garrison. The Spragues hosted three ex-US presidents: Filmore, Pierce, and Grant.
In addition to serving as Gibraltar Consul, Sprague was US Consular Agent for the entire Gibraltar Bay area, which included the Spanish towns of Algeciras, San Roque, and La Linea. Note that the Vice-Consul at San Roque was his wife's cousin, Francis Francia, member of the Calpe Hunt and owner of Villa Francia outside Campamento.
n/ Foreign Service Association, "The Spragues of Gibraltar," American Foreign Service Journal (October 1924).
The Rev. Henry Field, author of a Gibraltar guide read by Joyce, wrote of Horatio J. Sprague as follows:
"It is a happy circumstance that the Great Republic is so well represented; for a better man than Horatio J. Sprague could not be found in the two hemispheres. Through all these years he has maintained the honor of the American name, and to-day there is not within the walls of Gibraltar a man - soldier or civilian - who is more respected than this solitary representative of our country."
n/ Henry M. Field, Gibraltar (London: Chapman & Hall, 1889), 7.
Richard Ford, the previously mentioned travel writer, in his Spanish guidebook's 1869 edition, compliments Sprague. Ford notes that heading south from San Roque one can observe "... a ruined tower in the midst of a well cultivated vineyard belonging to Mr. Sprague, the hospitable United States Consul at Gibraltar."
Sprague's Family
Horatio J. and Antonia had eight children: four sons and four daughters. Of their children, three would live in England and one in Belgium. In 1889, their daughter Antoinette married Robert Greey, a cable ship captain for the Eastern Telegraph Company. Note that Henry Blackwood-Price, James Joyce's friend in Trieste, was an ETC telegraphic engineer for 37 years and would have learned of the Greey-Sprague marriage from announcements in professional journals as well as through company gossip.
Antonia died at age 40, two years after giving birth to her last child, Louis Charles. The Census of Gibraltar for 1881 show living at 34 Prince Edward's Road the widower Sprague, six of his children, and five domestic servants. Horatio never remarried and died in 1901.
n/ Ford, Handbook for Travellers in Spain, Part I, 4th Ed. (1869); Martine Janssen, "Horatio Jones Sprague," Geneanet, www.geneanet.com; The Electrician 23 (May 31, 1889).
John Louis Sprague
John Louis was the first-born child of Antonia and Horatio Jones. In 1875, the US State Department appointed him Vice-Consul for Gibraltar, a position he held until he died of "fever" in 1886 at age 31. Gibraltar was ravaged regularly by yellow fever, typhoid fever, and cholera epidemics and John probably was infected in the cholera outbreak of July-November, 1885. He never married.
n/ Mattox, "The Spragues of Gibraltar;" Lawrence R. Sawchuk and Stacie D.A. Burke, "The Barefooted Foreigner," Current Anthropology 49, No. 3 (June 2008): 511-18.
Horatio Louis Sprague
Gibraltar Census records for 1878 show 11-year-old Horatio Louis at home with his family on Prince Edward Road. He does not appear in the 1881 UK or Gibraltar Census; nor is he accounted for in the 1880 US Census. As at the time Horatio was 13 and 14 years old, he likely was in school on the Continent, probably in France. During the period 1886-1887, young Horatio Louis worked as a temporary clerk at the US Consulate in Gibraltar. When he came of age in 1888, the State Department established a "Consular Clerk" position for that station. Consular clerks, unlike consuls, were career employees who could be removed from office only for misconduct. Starting annual pay was $1,000 and after five years increased to $1,200. Turnover in those positions was high as the salary did not cover the expense of living abroad. On April 30, 1888, the State Department appointed Horatio Louis Sprague consular clerk in Gibraltar. Five months later, Horatio Louis resigned his position. Afterwards, he no longer appears in public records.
n/ Mattox, "The Spragues of Gibraltar;" Augustus E. Ingram, "The Corps of Consular Clerks," American Foreign Service Journal 12, No. 9 (September 1935): 498-501; Treasury, Accounts with the First Comptroller for FY 1886-87, 50th Cong. - 1st sess. 1887, Ex. Doc. No. 15, 102, 148, 513, 1017; Chief of Consular Bureau, Recommendation for Public Office, April 28, 1888, US National Archives 763927/116.
Horatio Louis Sprague suffered from mental illness and it's likely that an acute episode caused his resignation from the US Consular Service. At some point in time, his family placed him into a mental asylum in Spain where he resided for many years. In 1936, at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Horatio Louis' family relocated him to the Asylum of St. John of God, Gibraltar. Horatio Louis Sprague died there of cardiovascular disease on June 4, 1939. He was the last surviving Sprague in Gibraltar.
n/ US Consul for Gibraltar, Despatch No. 109 and Related Memoranda, June-October, 1939, General Records of the Department of State (British Mediterranean colonies and African islands), US National Archives 206478775/1452 Microfilm 349.115S-351.113L.
Louis Charles Sprague
He was the Sprague's youngest child and was a career British Army officer of the Royal Irish Rifles. Spragues born in Gibraltar, upon reaching the age of legal maturity, had to choose between US and UK citizenship. Louis, unlike most Gibraltar Spragues, opted to become a British subject.
Louis received his regular army commission in 1895 through "the back door" of the militia (on March 3, 1894, "Louis Charles Sprague, Gent." had been commissioned a second lieutenant in the Wexford Militia). On January 18, 1905, Captain Sprague married Frances Ross, a daughter of a well-known Lurgan linen manufacturer, John Ross. As Sprague was Catholic and his bride-to-be Anglican, he was married in Dublin "by special license" of the Church of Ireland. At the time, Sprague was in Belfast as adjutant of the Royal Antrim Militia, his regiment's 4th Battalion. His regular army battalion, 2nd/Royal Irish Rifles, was in Dublin.
In the army, Louis qualified as both a Spanish and French interpreter, and in 1912 completed the three-year Staff College course. He experienced active service in the 2nd Boer War (South Africa) and the First World War (France). At the outbreak of the world war, Captain Sprague was in Aden as the garrison's Deputy-Assistant Adjutant & Quartermaster General. In November 1916, while temporarily commanding his regiment's 2nd Battalion in France, he was gassed and consequently invalided home. Lieutenant-Colonel Louis Sprague never fully recovered from his war injury and died of "septic poisoning" in 1924 at age 49. At the time, he and his family lived in Bayswater, London.
n/ London Gazette - December 6, 1895, March 2, 1894; Belfast Telegraph, July 23, 1924; Lurgan Times, January 21, 1905; Monthly Army List - December 1905, August 1914; London Gazette, February 5, 1909; Hart's Annual Army List, 1913.
Richard Louis Sprague
Upon the death of Horatio J. Sprague, the US Department of State, as expected by all, appointed his son, Richard Louis, Consul for Gibraltar. "Dick" Sprague, by 1911, was the only descendant of Horatio, Sr. then living on the Rock.
n/ Census of Gibraltar, 1911; Mattox, "The Spragues of Gibraltar."
Sprague, a confirmed bachelor, once came close to marrying. While in the US on leave, he became enchanted with a woman he met at a dance. Soon thereafter, he proposed to her and she accepted on the spot. For two years, Sprague "suffered untold agony trying to shake himself loose in a delicate, unabrupt manner." Eventually, the engagement was called off and he vowed never to repeat such action.
Sprague, like his forebears, was a noted host for Gibraltar society and additionally, an athlete who served as president of the Mediterranean Rowing Club. Sprague was an avid hiker and oarsman and won several cups and medals at sculling. From his hacienda at the Sprague Farm, he frequently walked the hills and valleys of the Campo de Gibraltar. Dick Sprague developed friendships with many visiting US Navy officers and had the unusual privilege to once travel to the States on a battleship: USS New York.
n/ Arthur D. Hayden, "The Rock: Asset of the Sprague Family," American Foreign Service Journal (February 1943); Gibraltar Directory, 1922; Foreign Service Association, "The Spragues of Gibraltar."
Sometime prior to 1911, Sprague vacated the large property at 34 Prince Edward's Road where the top floor had the consular offices. He leased it to the Spanish Consul-General, Francisco Marti y Diaz de Jauregui, a widower. The Spaniard's wife was Ernestine Saccone, a daughter of the wealthy Gibraltar banker and merchant, Geronimo ("Jerome") Saccone, born in Genoa. Sprague moved to a house next to the old family home (26 Prince Edward's Road) where he lived with a cook and general maid. This property was smaller than his former home but as it had eight rooms, it was quite large for Gibraltar. In 1921, Dick Sprague and his dometics lived near the town's South Wall.
US Consulate c. 1932.
In 1926, Sprague relocated to the new US Consulate in leased premises on Mediterranean Terrace near his family's old home. The government offices were in a one-storey building while the consular residence was in the attached two-storey building. The office was decorated with old engravings and prints, carved mirrors, portraits, and old furniture which distinguished it from other American consulates with their standardized, government-issued furnishings.
To see the locations of the US Consulate on maps, click on the following links and an image will open from this website in a popup window: On 1869 town plan; on modern town plan.
Assistant Secretary of State Wilbur J. Carr characterized Sprague's service as of exceptional loyalty and fidelity like that of his father and grandfather. A newspaper reporter once asked Sprague why the authorities continued to appoint his family members to the Gibraltar post and he replied, "We always did our work and never bothered the State Department." Dick Sprague died on October 16, 1934 of complications from diabetes at age 63.
n/ Foreign Service Association, "The Spragues of Gibraltar;" Census of Gibraltar, 1921; Mattox, "The Spragues of Gibraltar."
Horatio J. Sprague, Joyce, and Ulysses
In one of James Joyce's notebooks for Ulysses (Buffalo Notebook V.A. 2), crayoned over in green, appears the following:
"1 Am in G consul,"
"Horatio J Sprague 40 yrs 1847 general Ulysses Grant, welcome 5 1/2 9 1/2 guns,"
The first line refers to Horatio Jones Sprague as the only American resident in Gibraltar in the 1880s. The second line is somewhat puzzling: Sprague was appointed US Consul in 1848, not 1847. In 1886, when Major Tweedy and his daughter Marion left Gibraltar, Sprague had been consul for 38 years not 40. Ulysses S. Grant could not have been saluted with 9.5" gunfire as neither the Royal Navy, nor British Army, had guns of that caliber (the army though, had 9.2" and 10" guns). According to the noted Ulysses scholar, Phillip Herring, these notations are from Field's Gibraltar, 7-8, which he believes Joyce used as a source of Gibraltar information. (Click on the link for this site's Gibraltar page from where you can access that book.)
Field twice states that at the time of his Gibraltar visit, the Sprague family was the only American presence on the Rock. Field claims that when he met Sprague, the man had been US Consul for 40 years. As Field met Sprague in early January 1887, Joyce simply assumed the travel writer was correct about the year of Sprague's consular appointment. Though Field mentions Generals Grant and Sherman, his Gibraltar book is silent on the former President's brief visit to the fortress-colony in November 1878. The British Army had 5.5" guns (24-pounders) to fire in Grant's honor. Joyce could have read about such guns in Drinkwater's A History of the Siege of Gibraltar, Lang's Gibraltar and the West Indies, or the history of the Great Siege (1779-1783) as it appears in all editions of the Gibraltar Directory.
As shown in the quote from Ulysses at the top of this page, Joyce not only knew that in 1886 the US consul in Gibraltar was old, but that he had a son who died that year. Material on John Louis Sprague does not appear in any of the Gibraltar reference works used by Joyce. How Joyce knew this obscure biographical fact is a mystery. Perhaps, he gained such knowledge from a friend or acquaintance familiar with Gibraltar such as Ezra Pound, Italo Svevo (Ettore Schmitz), or even Henry Blackwood-Price. Joyce could not have read of John Sprague's death in one of the multiple editions of the Gibraltar Directory he consulted for writing the "Penelope" episode. The directory's "Chronicle of Events" for the preceeding year section first appeared in 1888. That year's edition was the first edited by Cavendish Boyle. Note that the death of George J. Gilbard, founder of the Gibraltar Directory, appears in the 1888 edition. The funeral took place on January 24, 1887 and one of the pallbearers was a "Lieut.-Colonel Tweedie, D.S.O." which perhaps was how Joyce chose Molly Bloom's maiden name.
n/ Phillip F. Herring, ed., Joyce's Notes and Early Drafts for Ulysses (Charlottesville, VA: Univ. Press of Virginia, 1977), 59; James Van Dyck Card, "A Gibraltar Sourcebook for 'Penelope'," James Joyce Quarterly 8, No. 2 (Winter 1971); 163-75; "List of British Service Artillery in Use During the Victorian Period," Victorian Forts and Artillery, www.victorianforts.co.uk/art/gun2.htm; Robert Martin Adams, Surface and Symbol (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1962), 232; Gibraltar Directory for 1887; Gibraltar Directory for 1888, 201.
Family Tree, Horatio Sprague's Descendants
For a family tree of three generations of Spragues descended from Horatio Sprague click here and it will open from this website in a popup window.
Additional Sources: For Delphine Sprague (1832-1911) - University of South Carolina, Caroliniana Society Annual Gifts Report for 2019.
Links to Other Websites
Note: The webpages will open in new windows.
Click on the link to go to that page of the website. Click on the icon to go to the website's home page.
Article about a War of 1812 American privateer, George Coggeshal, whose ship was captured by the British and taken to Gibraltar. Coggeshal escaped from Gibraltar and made his way to Algeciras where he was aided by Sprague. A.C.M. Azoy, "A Yankee Skipper Who Preyed on British Shipping Relates His Wartime Experiences," American Heritage (October 1957).
Coggeshal's encounter with Sprague appears near the article's end. Go to Page 13 then scroll to the bottom.
The above link is to an essay on the website of The People of Gibraltar which the author maintains.
The above link is to the second part of a multi-part essay. It covers the period 1800-1855.
The above link is to the essay's third part which covers the period 1847-1881.
Page on the website of the New England Historical Society. The society was formed in 2013 to promote interest in New England history and tell stories unique to that region.
A 2006 article by Alexandra Hall on the website of Boston Magazine.
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