52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS: EDWARD COLBOURNE

Fellow geneablogger Amy Johnson Crow of No Story Too Small has issued the 52
Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge. Basically, we have to post something evey week
on a different ancestor, whether a story, picture, or research problem. I thought I'd
give it a shot, and start with Edward Colbourne.


My 8x great grandfather Edward Colbourne/Colborne/Colburn/Coburn arrived in
Boston on the ship "Defence" on October 30th, 1635. His age was listed as seventeen.
There is some evidence that he was, for a time, a farmer on land owned by the
Saltonstall family in Ipswich. In 1642 he married his wife Hannah(her last name may
have been Rolfe)in Ipswich and they began having children. By 1666 they had nine
children, two girls and nine boys, one of whom was my ancestor Joseph Colburn.

With that many sons, Edward would have wanted his own land to provide for their
future. At first the family moved to Chelmsford, where his by now grown sons started
their own farms, but apparently Edward felt the need for more. So  In 1668 he bought
part of the land owned by a John Webb from his widow, and three years later he bought
the rest. The land was on the norther side of the Merrimac River and is now in the town
of Dracut, Massachusetts. Edward is credited as one of the founding fathers of the town. 

A few years later the King Philip's War broke out. Edward Colborne by that time had
built one of the classic New England garrison style house. On  March 18 1675 the Wamesit Indians attacked while Edward was guarding the ferry at the Merrimac River. Two sons of Edward's friend Samuel Varnum were killed and the houses in Chelmsford that were owned by Edward's sons were burned down. Other than that the family came through that war unharmed, and also survived the King William's War thanks to the garrison house. Edward died on 17Feb 1700.

You may have noticed I listed all the various spellings I've found for Edward's name. This
is because many of them are used in documents issued in Edward's own lifetime. He seemed to have settled on Coburn by the end of his life, although some of his descendants used Colburn. My own descent from Edward comes to me through my grandmother Cora Barker:
Edward & Hannah Rolfe(?)
Joseph & Hannah(last name UNK)
Moses & Deborah Wright
Caleb & UNK
Moses & Esther Spaulding
Wesley & Lesley Stowe
Lucy & Nathaniel S Barker
FranK W, Barker & Charlotte Barker(cousins)
Cora B, Barker & Floyd E. West Sr.(my grandparents)