Dalton C. Bergan graduated from the University of New Mexico in 1937 in Mechanical Engineering. He was a member of the Sigma Tau fraternity and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. While working at the JET Propulsion Laboratory in California he wrote books on the histories of the Bergan and Hugos-Hinoien families from the Minnesota, southwest North Dakota and Canadian communities. He also wrote Pathfinder: The Story of François X. Aubry on the Santa Fe Trail and the California - Santa Fe Trail, 1846-1854 .
Lucien Bonaparte Maxwell, frontiersman and rancher, was born in Illinois in 1818. He worked in the fur trade at Bent's Fort in southeastern Colorado eventually arriving in Taos in 1841. He married Luz Beaubien, daughter of Charles Beaubien, in March 1842. Charles Beaubien had the opportunity to buy his partner's share in the Beaubien-Miranda Land Grant. Beaubien was not interested, but his son-in-law, Lucien Maxwell was. In 1858, Miranda's property was signed over to Maxwell for the sum of $2,745. Later Maxwell bought the rest of the land from the Beaubien heirs. In 1871 Lucien and Luz Beaubien Maxwell sold the entire estate to a Colorado syndicate headed by Jerome B. Chaffee. Maxwell died at age 56, five years after selling out.
François Xavier Aubry, a Santa Fe trader and freighter, was born in the Quebec Province in 1824. In 1843 he left Canada for the United States where he worked as a clerk in Saint Louis. His first visit to Santa Fe was in June 1846. He looked for short cuts on the Santa Fe and Chihuahua trails. His journals and letters were published in the newspapers of the time. In 1853-1854 he searched for a good route for the Pacific Railroad between Santa Fe and San Francisco. In August 1854 in Santa Fe, Aubry was killed by Major R. H. Weightman.
From the guide to the Dalton C. Bergan research materials on Lucien Bonaparte Maxwell and François Xavier Aubry, 1852-1978, (Center for Southwest Research, University of New Mexico.)
