Rendezvous with History
The Aztec Club's Sesquicentennial Tour
Site of the
Aztec Club's Founding
and its 150th Anniversary Meeting
On Saturday Oct. 11, the Aztec Club held its Sesquicentennial Meeting, convened in the very rooms where many of our ancestors had been. We were at the former estate of José María Bocanegra (1787-1862), Mexico's Minister to the United States.
Bocanegra was a Mexican lawyer and politician who was briefly president of Mexico in 1829. He entered Mexico's Chamber of Deputies in 1827. On January 26, 1829, Mexico's President Guadalupe Victoria named him Minister of Internal and External Relations. Bocanegra continued to hold this position with the change of administration to Vicente Guerrero, until April 1, 1829.
 On December 4, 1829, Vice-President Anastasio Bustamante rose in revolt against Guerrero (Plan de Jalapa). Guerrero took the field to combat the rebels. By virtue of his position as President of the Supreme Court, on December 18, 1829 Bocanegra became interim president during Guerrero's absence. He served from that date to December 23, 1829, only five days. On the latter date, the military garrison of Mexico City joined the Plan de Jalapa and withdrew recognition of Bocanegra. They installed an executive triumvirate of Pedro Vélez, Lucas Alamán and Luis de Quintanar. Bocanegra left the government to resume his career as a lawyer.
Later, Bocanegra was Minister of the Treasury under Presidents Valentín Gómez Farías and Antonio López de Santa Anna (April 26, 1833 to December 12, 1833) and Minister of External Relations and of the Treasury under presidents Santa Anna, Nicolás Bravo and Valentín Canalizo (through August 18, 1844). During this period Bocanegra violently protested the annexation of Texas by the United States.
Gen. Scott’s Entrance into Mexico City
Adolphe Jean Baptiste Bayot after Carl Nebel. Lithograph. Appleton and Company, 1851.
This famous lithograph depicts the artist's view of Winfield Scott, on white horse, triumphantly entering the Grand Plaza, or Zócalo. The Cathedral and National Palace sit center and right. On the left is the estate of Senór Bocanegra, the building in which the Aztec Club of 1847 was founded on October 13, 1847. The home was utilized as the Aztec Club until May 25, 1848.
The Bocanegra estate as it appeared in the 1960's.
This magnificent structure, built by artisans in the 18th-century as a palace for the Viceroy of Spain, is located at the corner of Cinco de Mayo and Isabel la Catolica avenues just off the famed Plaza de la Constitución, or Zócalo. When the Americans occupied Mexico City it became the Aztec Club.
The Pedroza family, who by 1997 had owned this historic building for more than fifty years, only recently completed a faithful restoration of the structure to its former splendor when we visited in 1997. It was being utilized for first class office space above ground-floor retailing. We were impressed with the preservation and restoration of its original hand-painted tiles, ornate moldings, dark wood flooring, and shrine to the Virgin Guadalupe, with which our ancestors must have been impressed 150 years earlier.
The restored Bocanegra home (Aztec Club)
as it appeared during our 1997 visit
The restored Bocanegra home (Aztec Club)
as it appeared during our 1997 visit
Facade of the restored Bocanegra home (Aztec Club)
as it appeared during our 1997 visit
Second floor patio at the restored Bocanegra home (Aztec Club)
as it appeared during our 1997 visit
Staircase leading to the second floor in the restored Bocanegra home (Aztec Club)
as it appeared during our 1997 visit
The original stone stairs were magnificently restored to their original condition, as was the Shrine to the Virgin Guadalupe seen at the top.
Second-floor hallway in the restored Bocanegra home (Aztec Club)
as it appeared during our 1997 visit
Second-floor room in the restored Bocanegra home
as it appeared during our 1997 visit
This room might have been used as a game or card room when it served the Aztec Club.
Our imaginations ran wild at the thought of what these walls had seen. Perhaps Sam Grant, sitting over there with life-long friends James Longstreet and Cadmus Wilcox playing cards. Or, maybe Cump Sherman having a beer with Joe Johnston. They, too, had a friendship that lasted a lifetime. Perhaps over there had been George B. McClellan smoking a cigar with John B. Magruder.
View of the second floor street-side balcony doors inside
the restored Bocanegra home (Aztec Club)
as it appeared during our 1997 visit
Large room with balcony located on the second floor.
This large room, facing the street-side balcony, might have served as a dining room when the building served the Aztec Club.
The buildings lining the main street today on which the Bocanegra home include several erected in the 18th and 19th centuries, providing a glimpse of what our forefathers might have seen.
View out of the second floor balcony
of the restored Bocanegra home (Aztec Club)
as it appeared during our 1997 visit.
Sesquicentennial Annual Meeting
Aztec Club members gather in the very room
where the Aztec Club of 1847 was founded.
Left to right: John Hawkins Napier, III; Bryan Snyder, III; Raymond Lawrence Drake; David Lee Whelchel, Jr.; Alexander Rieman Early, III; William Wiseman Huss, Jr.' Willard Blankenship; Worthington Peter Pearre; Richard Hoag Breithaupt, Jr.; Oliver Page Snyder; Benjamin Buford Williams; Priestley Toulmin, III; Frederick Brockway Gleason, III and Frederick Talley Drum Hunt.
Museum of Intervention
Later that day, we journeyed a short distance to Churubusco, once a garrisoned convent, now home to Mexico's Museum of Intervention (Museo Nacional de las Intervenciones), where we viewed a starkly different interpretation of the war. A commemorative exhibition explained how Mexico had lost one-half of its territory to the invading American armies. Upon discovering we were Americans, the Museum employee at the gift shop asked if we were there to honor the San Patricios, perhaps not realizing that these Irishmen who had become heroes to the Mexicans were traitors to the United States.
The Museum of Intervention at Churubusco
At the entrance to the Museum of Intervention
John Hawkins Napier, III; Richard Hoag Breithaupt, Jr.; Frederick Brockway Gleason, III; William Wiseman Huss, Jr.; Worthington Peter Pearre and Willard Blankenship
The plaque at the entrance to the Museum of Intervention
Sesquicentennial Dinner
On Saturday evening, October 11, 1997 the Aztec Club of 1847 held its gala sesquicentennial dinner overlooking the grand Zócalo, where 150 years earlier Winfield Scott's army entered as it captured the National Palace. We dined at the Gran Hotel, an architecturally distinctive 19th century hotel on the main square in historic Zócalo, across from the Presidential Palace. The lobby of this five story marble structure features a spectacular Tiffany skylight and gilded open cage elevators. From a balcony we looked across the grand square at the National Palace, which we visited earlier in our trip.
Gran Hotel Ciúdad de Mexico
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