My Revolutionary War Ancestors - Amos Burnham of Ipswich, Massachusetts

 

1832 map of Ipswich, Massachusetts

This is the 11th Revolutionary War ancestor I have written about in this series.  My 5th great grandfather Amos Burnham was born on 13 July 1735 in Ipswich, Massachusetts, the son of David Burnham and Elizabeth Marshall.  On 27 January 1757 he married Sarah Giddings in Ipswich.  She was the daughter of Thomas Giddings and Martha Smith, born in 1737.  

Sarah and Amos had eleven children born in Essex and Ipswich between 1758 and 1782.  On 26 January 1782, Sarah died, just 12 days after giving birth to her last child, Judith, my 4th great grandmother.  I don't know how this infant survived without a mother, but she did live and I'm grateful!  Later that same year, on 4 October 1782 Amos married Mehitable Burnham, daughter of Solomon Burnham and Mehitable Emerson. I'm sure that the hasty marriage was to secure a wife to take care of his many children.  Mehitable was the widow of Joshua Foster.  He had at least one more child with his second marriage. 

During the Revolutionary War Amos Burnham served as a private in Captain David Low's Third Regiment, under Colonel Jonathan Cogswell's Company in 1778. I know very little about his time in the military, and very little about his private life.  Was he a farmer? A fisherman or mariner (Ipswich is a coastal town)? 

Amos Burnham died by drowning in Chebacco Pond in Essex on 28 November 1788 "while fowling" (hunting water fowl).  He was 54 years old.  This incident is mentioned on page 204 of the History of Ipswich, Essex and Hamilton, by Joseph B. Felt, 1834. I have not found a gravestone for Amos or either one of his two wives.  He left his second wife, Mehitable, a widow again for the second time with three children under the age of 18.  Judith, his daughter, my 4th great grandmother, married Joseph Allen on 5 April 1799 in Ipswich, and had eleven children, just like her own mother and father. 

For the truly curious:

Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War, Volume 2, page 874

The Burnham Family, or, Genealogical Records of the Descendants of the Four Emigrants of the Name, by Roderick H. Burnham, 1869. 

#1 in this series,  Colonel Joshua Burnham of Milford, New Hampshire:    https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2026/02/my-revolutionary-war-patriots-colonel.html  

#2 in this series,  Andrew Munroe of Lexington, Massachusetts:   https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2026/03/my-revolutionary-war-patriots-major.html  

#3 Jonathan Flint of Reading, Massachusetts:    https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2026/03/my-revolutionary-war-patriots-jonathan.html   

#4 Daniel Glover of Marblehead, Massachusetts:    https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2026/04/my-revolutionary-war-patriots-daniel.html  

#5 Levi Younger of Gloucester, Massachusetts:    https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2026/04/my-revolutionary-war-patriots-levi.html  

#6 Nathaniel Treadwell of Ipswich, Massachusetts:    https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2026/04/my-revolutionary-war-patriots-nathaniel.html 

#7 Captain Westley Burnham of Essex, Massachusetts:   https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2026/04/my-revolutionary-war-patriots-captain.html  

#8 Abner Poland, Sr. of Essex, Massachusetts:    https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2026/05/my-revolutionary-war-patriots-abner_02014071889.html   

#9 Abner Poland, Jr. Of Essex, Massachusetts and Enfield, New Hampshire:    https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2026/05/my-revolutionary-war-patriots-abner_02014071889.html  

#10 Robert Wilson of Salem Village, (now Danvers, Massachusetts)     https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2026/03/my-revolutionary-war-patriots-robert.html   

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To cite/link to this blog post: Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "My Revolutionary War Ancestors - Amos Burnham of Ipswich, Massachusetts", Nutfield Genealogy, posted June 22, 2026, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2026/06/my-revolutionary-war-ancestors-amos.html: accessed [access date]).