Person:Jehu Burr (3)

"Burr, Jehu, s. of Jehu. Deputy (Fairfield) to Conn. Leg., Oct. 1659, Oct. 1660, May 1661, May and Oct. 1663, May and Oct. 1668, May 1669, May and Oct. 1670, May 1672, May and Oct. 1673, May 1674, May and Oct. 1675, May 1676, May 1678, Oct. 1679, May and Oct. 1680, May 1682, May 1683 to May 1685 inclusive, May 1686, May 1691; Commissioner for Fairfield, 1664, 1668 to 1687 inclusive, 1689-92. Lieutenant, Fairfield County Troop, Aug. 1673; member of War Council, Oct. 1675, May 1676; Commissioner for Indians, May 1680; Colonial grant of 200 acres, May 1673.

Born prob. by 1625, d. at Fairfield in 1692; m (1) after 1655, Esther, widow of Joseph Boosey of Westchester, and perhaps dau. of Andrew Ward; m. (2) by 1666, Elizabeth Prudden, dau. of Rev. Peter, bapt. at Milford, 11 Mar. 1642/3.

Will 11 Jan. 1689 [1689/90], proved 31 Oct. 1692; wife (name not stated); sons Daniel, Peter, Samuel (the last a minor); dau. Esther had received portion; daus. Elizabeth, Sarah, Joanna, Abigail, all under 18; gr. child Mary, only child of dec'd dau. Mary by son-in-law Samuel Wakeman; bros. John and Nathaniel, overseers."^[1]

Jehu Burr's Wives

"The problem of Jehu's wives is so difficult as to require special consideration. We have been assisted by a discussion of the problem with Mr. Clarence A. Torrey, of Dorchester, Mass., who however must not be understood to endorse the conclusions stated in their entirety. The Ward Gen. and Burr Gen. follow the Hist. of Fairfield in supposing that Jehu m. (1) Mary Ward, dau. of Andrew, and (2) widow Esther Boosey. This can be positively disproved. Joseph Boosey, of the Wethersfield family, settled in Westchester and d. in 1655, leaving his entire estate to his wife Esther. She m. Jehu Burr, and with him conveyed her interest in Boosey property 27 Feb. 1661 [1661/2], for £64, the deed at Wethersfield stating that James Boosey have the land to his son Joseph Boosey first husband 'unto the said Easter and now the wife of the said Jehu Burr.' In consequence, she must have been mother of the elder Burr children, Daniel, whose birth must certainly be placed as early as 1660, and Esther, named after herself.

The Prudden letters, discovered and published [The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Jan. 1930] by Mr. George C. Bryant, prove just as positively that Jehu m. Elizabeth dau. of Rev. Peter and Joanna (Boyse) Prudden of Milford. Her mother Joanna had an income from English estates, which she left by will to her children. Letters written by Rev. John Prudden, brother of Elizabeth, and accounts kept by him, prove that her share was paid for a time to Peter Burr. In 1707 he wrote: 'I have not sent any share to Peter Burr: being fully persuaded that he understands the Letter of his Grand-mothers Will better then to think that his mother had any Right in this Revenue to convey to another after her decease.'

Elizabeth Prudden was therefore the mother of Peter Burr, b. 1668, and as every one of the five younger Burr children had Prudden names, we have little hesitancy in assigning them to Elizabeth. The only child whose maternity is in doubt is Mary Burr who m. Samuel Wakeman and d. abt. 1688 leaving an only child, Mary Wakeman. She was prob. older than Peter, hence b. abt. 1666.

Mary Burr's dau. Mary Wakeman lived in girlhood in Milford, and her deed conveying Fairfield proberty was witnessed by Sylvanus Baldwin (who m. Mildred Prudden, sister of Elizabeth). Left a double orphan, we can only conclude that she had gone to live with relatives of her grandmother in Milford. This deed is convincing evidence that her mother Mary Burr (b. abt 1666) was dau. of Jehu by his Prudden wife. Elizabeth witnessed a deed with Jehu, 24 May 1667, but the above considerations make it necessary to set the date of their marriage in 1665, or 1666 at the latest. This is three or at most four years after the last date on which Jehu's first wife Esther is known to have been living.

The will of Hester Ward (widow of Andrew) in 1665 named her living children, including dau. Mary Burr, and several sets of grandchildren in such terms as might imply that they were all the grandchildren she had. At the end, almost as an afterthought, she gave ten shillings apiece to Daniel and Hester Burr, without specifying relationship to herself, or even their parentage.

Unquestionably, the Daniel and Hester Burr referred to were the eldest children of Jehu, then young children of perhaps five and three years of age. It was natural to assume, as previous writers did, that Mary Ward m. Jehu Burr and was mother of these children. But we have shown that Esther was the first wife, and mother of Daniel and Esther, hence this theory, formerly widely accepted, is untenable.

Mary Ward was married by 1659, for she was among the daus. not given legacies in Andrew Ward's will because they had received portions at marriage; and her mother's will proves that she was wife of a Burr in Dec. 1665. It is very improbable that she was wife of Jehu, since his marriage to Elizabeth Prudden must be placed as early as 1665-66. The only Fairfield Burr available as her husband was Jehu's brother John, whose marriage to Sarah Fitch did not occur much before 1673, when he was nearing forty. A prior marriage for him was not only possible, but probable. The will in 1684 of Moses Dimon (who m. Abigail Ward) called John Burr and Samuel Ward his brethren, and it is difficult to explain why this term was applied to John Burr unless he had been the husband of Mary Ward, sister of Dimon's wife.

The only problem remaining is why Mrs. Hester Ward gave small legacies to [Jehu's children] Daniel and Hester Burr. The compiler's personal belief is that their mother, the widow Esther Boosey, was a dau. of Andrew and Hester Ward (Mr. O. P Dexter's valuable notes state that Mary Ward 'm. a Burr, probably Jehu.' He says of Mrs. Hester Ward that 'she gives also to Daniel and Esther Burr, children of Jehu Burr by Esther, widow of Joseph Boosey; I strongly suspect that this Esther was another dau. of Andrew and Esther Ward: which immediately raises the question whether the Puritans permitted a man to marry his dec'd wife's sister.' The undeniable abhorrence with which such marriages were regarded makes it impossible to suppose that Jehu m. both Esther and Mary, if they were sisters). Her name, like that of other married daus., would not appear in Andrew's will, and she died before Mrs. Ward. The only objections to this theory are: (1) Mrs. Ward's will did not specifically call the Burr children her grandchildren. However, she did refer to them so casually, that we infer it would be clear to her contemporaries how they were related to her and why it was natural for her to remember them. (2) She gave legacies of £9 to several groups of her grandchildren, in such terms as might lead to the supposition that she had no other grandchildren. This objections seems to us entirely negative, for wills of that period were often not drawn with the meticulous phrasing of a modern will drawn by an attorney. The failure of Mrs. Ward to give the Burr children an equal amount with other groups of her grandchildren is susceptible of explanation. The Boosey estate which Esther inherited was worth upward of £64, and the Burr children were the eventual heirs; this was more than seven times the legacies which Mrs. Ward gave to the other groups of grandchildren, so she could have considered them already well provided for.

However, the evidence is insufficient to prove that Esther was dau. of the Wards; and the theory is equally tenable that she was a niece or other relative of Mrs. Ward; and named after her."^[1]

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6} Jehu Burr, in Jacobus, Donald Lines. History and Genealogy of the Families of Old Fairfield. (New Haven, Conn.: The Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor Company, 1930-1932)
   1:117-120 .