i. William Burrows(42) (46) was born on Oct 6 1785 in Kinderton, Pennsylvania. He died on Sep 6 1813 in at sea, off Portland, Maine. William Burrows commanded the sloop-of-war Enterprise in its battle with the Royal Navy brig Boxer, one of the most famous naval episodes in the War of 1812.
Educated in the classics, and speaking both French and German fluently, Burrows was warranted a midshipman in 1799 and joined the frigate U.S.S. Portsmouth in January 1800. During his cruise on the Portsmouth he participated in the capture of two French privateers. In 1803 he was posted aboard the U.S.S. Constitution as an acting lieutenant and served on her all during the Tripolitan war. He also served aboard the President and the Hornet, serving on the latter as first lieutenant.
In 1811 he took a leave of absence for a year and sailed to India and China on board the merchant ship Thomas Penrose. On his return the vessel was captured by a British ship, the War of 1812 having broken out, and he was taken to Barbadoes as a prisoner of war. He was soon paroled and on his return to the United States was given command of the 16-gun Enterprise.
Sailing from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on Sep 5 1813, he fell in with the Boxer off Portland, Maine, the next day, and a fierce forty-five minute engagement followed. The British captain was cut in two by chain shot and Burrows himself was mortally wounded, but lived long enough to accept the British surrender.
The Enterprise and its captive put into Portland, and there the two captains were buried side by side, where they remain to this day, a touching monument to a long-forgotten family quarrel.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a native of Portland, wrote of the battle in his famous poem "My Lost Youth":
I remember the sea-fight far away
How it thundered o'er the tide!
And the dead captains, as they lay
In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay,
Where they in battle died.
And the sound of the mournful song
Goes through me with a thrill:
A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.
Congress awarded a gold medal to his nearest surviving male relative and two ships in the U.S. Navy, DD-29 in the First World War and DE-105 in the Second were named for him. The name of his ship, Enterprise, has been borne by a number of United States naval vessels since, most notably the aircraft carrier that fought gallantly throughout the Second World War in the Pacific. She was one of the three American carriers at the Battle of Midway, facing a vastly superior Japanese fleet. And it was from her deck that the dive-bomber strike that sank four Japanese carriers and carried the day was launched. It gave the United States Navy the greatest victory in its history, one that ranks in consequence with Salamis and Trafalgar. The current U.S.S. Enterprise, the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, was built in the 1960's.
There is an article on Captain Burrows in the Dictionary of American Biography.
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42. Dictionary of American Biography.
44. South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine. "The William Burrows House of Charleston" by Harriett P and Alberts Simons, Vol. 70 (1969), pp. 155-176.
46. Ibid. "The William Burrows House of Charleston" by Harriett P and Alberts Simons, Vol. 70 (1969), pp. 155-176.
