Person:Levi Burcham (1)

Biography

Carroll 1765-1815: The Settlements, By John Perry Alderman; Published by Alderman Books, 1985, p. 211-212 Levi Burcham The Burchams were an old Quaker family which came from New Jersey, through Virginia into North Carolina. John Burcham the elder is thought to have been born in 1740 to Joseph and Rebecca (Borden) Burcham and to have married Roseanna Swearingen a little before 1760. He did not live in Carroll, so far as the records show, but he did buy a tract of land on Crooked Creek (140 acres) from William Bradley in 1797 (Grayson D. B. 1- 63). Part of this he deeded tohis son Levi in 1801 and the rest he willed to his son John Burcham Jr. (Grayson, D. B. 1-393); Surry County, N. C., Wills). Levi Burcham was the fifth child and second son of old John and Roseanna and is thought to have been born in 1774. Everyone agrees that his wife was Nancy Stoneman (1773- 1857), and all the researchers suspect that she was the eldest daughter of the elder James Stoneman, but no one has found the record to prove either proposition. Levi came to Crooked Creek about the timehis father bought the Bradley land; he appears on the Grayson tax list for 1798. His brother John sold Levi the rest of the tract in 1817 (Grayson, D. B. 3-536). The brother John also owned a tract of 180 acres on Little Reed which he sold in 1821 to Phillip Beamer; by that time the brother John had moved to Green County, Indiana (Grayson, D. B. 4-441). Levi and Nancy raised a family of nine children, most of them born after they came to Crooked Creed: (1) Mary Burcham, born in 1794, who never married. (2) Sarah Burcham, born 1797, died in 1854, was Dr. Joshua Stoneman’s second wife. (3) Burden Burcham, born about 1801, died in 1863, married Eleanor Edwards. (4) Kesiah Edwards, born in 1803, whose husband was probably Abner Vaughan. (5) Reuben Burcham, born in 1805, married Nancy Wheeler in 1823 and went to Illinois. (6) Allen Burcham, born in 1807, married Fanny Spence in 1823. (7) Anna Burcham, born in 1809, who married Amos Amburn in 1832. (8) Rebecca Burcham, born in 1812, married Charles J. Wheeler in 1837. (9) John Burcham, born in 1818, died in 1892, married Mahala Smith in 1837. In his younger days Levi was surveyor of the road (Grayson, Orders 1806-1811), but he took little part in county affairs. He died, according to his monument, in 1854. His heirs made an agreement May 6, 1854 to divide his property in accordance with Levi’s wishes, expressed by him to his wife “while he was in his proper mind some time before his death.” The widow together with the spinster Polly kept the home tract for their lifetimes. The personalty was to be divided among Sarah, Kesiah, Ann and Rebecca, with the sons Burden and John dividing the carpenter and smith tools. The land was to be divided between Burden, Reuben and John. The seven children who shared in the division signed the agreement (Carroll, D. B. 5-12). Allen Burcham did not sign, nor did the older sister Mary. Levi and Nancy together with many of their descendants are buried in the Crooked Creek Cemetery, adjacent to the old Crooked Creek Church.

Census

U.S. Federal Census 1850 Carroll County VA 616 Levi Burcham 73 m Farmer

    		Nancy       	74 f
    		Polly                56 f

1850 Annotated Census: Carroll County, Virginia. Compiled by John P. Alderman Levi (1774-1854) was the son of John and Rosanna (Swearingen) Burcham. His father came here, bought a farm on Crooked Creek, and then returned to Surry Col, N. C. Nancy (1775-1857) was a Stoneman, almost certainly the daughter of James and Sarah, the Stoneman settlers. There were nine children of which Polly, shown here, was the eldest. The county family descends from Levi’s two sons who remained here.

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2} John Perry Alderman. Carroll 1765-1815: The Settlements. (Alderman Books, Second Printing, Copyrighted 1985)
   212, 12/28/06.
2. ↑ Compiled by: John P. Alderman. 1850 Census: Annotated Carroll County, Virginia. (John P. Alderman & Peggy R. Reece, Copyrighted 1979)
   66, 12/29/06.
3. ↑ Jerry Q. Gentry. Burchams of Wilkes and Surry and Related Families. (By the author, Elkin, North Carolina, 1982.)
   14.
4. ↑ Levi Burcham Bible.
5. ↑ ^5.0 5.1 Cemetery Records of Carroll County, Virginia. (Gateway Press, Inc., Baltimore, MD 1990)
   417.