BOURNE, SYLVANUS

In "History Of Richard Bourne", letters to and from Sylvanus Bourne and his family in Wareham, MA have been preserved. They are typical, newsy, letters from home. Although this has been a resource for the Bourne family for a long time, other families have been mentioned as well, and they might not have considered this as a source of clues and information.

From Benjamin Bourne to Sylvanus:

8/15/1817:
"There is a number of people about to remove to the state of Ohio…Jonathan Read has just returned from Marietta and I hear (for I have not seen him) has made a purchase of 2000 acres of land near Marietta and is going to remove soon…

"Josiah Soule is married to Sarah Young and is going to move soon…I expect he will go near Warren where Cirus Bosworth is."

"Humewel Haskell and family I expect will be in Chilicothe this fall, is uncertain where he will make his stand…"

From Benjamin Bourne to Sylvanus: April 1819:

"Elizabeth Perry has been very sick and lay for 2 or 3 weeks and took nothing to support nature but a very trifle of wine and some other drink. I believe that trouble in her mind was the cause of her sickness, but whether of a spiritual or temporal nature, or both together I cannot judge, but she has got much better and has a good appetite to her food and it don't hurt her and I hear she is in a way to get well again very soon."

"As respecting the state of religion I am not able to give you a statement which will not be liable to great errors, there has been a very great attention to meetings and ministers, and it is said there is 80 to 90 who believe they are born again…as to Mr. Everett he is attentive and zealous as ever and is not willing that any should preach in his town that does not come fully come up to his orthodox. Noble Everett, Jr. and Abisha Barrows have quited all business and are learning of Mr. Everett to preach."

"Josiah has engaged with Bartlett Murdock, Esq. Today to go to Stafford in Connecticut to build two machines to pound the furnace cinder in order to get out the iron which remains in the cinder, which is found to be very profitable to the furnaces here."

From Benjamin Bourne to Sylvanus: 12/17/1819:

"…a number of your former acquaintances have been called by the messenger of death…Heamon Sturdevant, David Besse, Willis Chubbuck, Israel Bumpus, Mary Burgess, and William Burgess both died within 4 days of each other. Mr. Burgess, and almost all of his family have been sick, but have got better."

"Died in Rochester about 4 weeks since Lucy Clap daughter of Nathaniel Clap, she had been sick some time with a fever, it was not thought dangerous until a very short time before she died."

"Rev. Mr. Oliver Cobbs wife is dead and he is married again to Miss Hannah Burgess."

"Elizabeth Perry is married to John Covel and Ruth S. Covel married to Edward Rider of Yarmouth."

"Noble Everett Jr and Abisha Barrows have both quited their studies of divinity and gone to Virginia to work at their former occupations, the former at Fredricksburg and the latter at Tappahannock."

"Henry Fearing has come home from Baltimore on account of his lame knee, he has had a white swelling for some years which it is feared will finally prove fatal."

"Ebenezer (note: brother of Sylvanus) is keeping a school in Carver. Abigail has another son born 4 weeks since and both are doing well."

"…your cousin Ebenezer has brought of Michah H. Ruggles all the goods they had on hand and is trading here on his own account. Mr. Ruggles had given up all his business but his farm, and attending the Friends Meetings in which he is a speaker."

From Benjamin Bourne to Sylvanus 3/9/1821:

"Married last Thursday evening Caleb Leonard Cannon to Bathsheba Bourne. Mr. Cannon is in Co. with his cousin E. L. Bourne, trading in the village of Mattapoisett."

"Your brother Ebenezer has made his intentions of marriage known and expects to be married sometime this spring to Abigail daughter of Bethuel Bourne and we should be very glad if you could make us a visit at that time."

"Miss Martha Burgess is now in Wareham and says she formerly calculated her sister Hannah to be the old maid of the family but now thinketh it will fall on Martha…"

Sources

Reynard, Elizabeth. The Narrow Land: Folk Chronicles Of Old Cape Cod. Boston/New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1934. More Information

Dykes, Hannah Smith Bourne. History Of Richard Bourne And Some Of His Descendants. Cleveland: Privately printed by Benjamin F. Bourne, 1919 More Information