Auburn
Erasmus Darwins of Massachusetts

Auburn: Erasmus Lilly Burnap

06/15/2009 14:12
Auburn
Erasmus Lilly Burnap was born in Auburn Massachusetts on 12-17-1813. Erasmus was the son of Ebenezer Burnap of Sutton (1756-1820) (2) and Ruth Tucker of Charlton (b. 1780, d. in Cabot VT) (1). Ebenezer was the son of Ebenezer, who settled “Burnap Hill” on “land that was first occupied by the Indians for growing Indian corn,” in 1750 (3). Ebenezer and Ruth married in 1809, (4) a year after the death of Ebenezer’s first wife, Thankful. Ebenezer and Thankful had five children in Auburn; Ebenezer and Ruth had another two.

Erasmus married Susan R. Hawes of Auburn in 1834, (5) and had their first children there in 1836 and 1837. (5, p. 23). Erasmus and Susan moved to Cabot Vermont in 1837, and had five more children there. Erasmus became Deacon of the newly-established Advent Church in 1858, before moving to Calais Vermont in 1859. Susan Burnap died in 1862, and Erasmus remarried in 1867. He was a State Representative for Calais in 1876 (6). Erasmus farmed 170 acres of land, and kept 24 head of cattle and 700 sugar trees. Erasmus apparently lived through 1889, when the last record I could find of him was published (7).

1. Vital Records of Sutton, Massachusetts (Worcester: Franklin P. Rice, 1907), p. 28
2. William A. Benedict, History of the Town of Sutton, Massachusetts (Worcester: Sanford and Co., 1878), p. 389
3. E. Tucker, Genealogy of the Tucker Family (Higginson Book Co., 1989)
4. Vital Records of Charlton, Massachusetts, (Worcester: Franklin P. Rice, 1905), p. 132
5. Vital Records of the Town of Auburn (Formerly Ward) Massachusetts (Worcester: Franklin P. Rice, 1900), p. 61
6. Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Vermont, Biennial Session, 1876 (Rutland: Tuttle and Co., 1877), p. 9
7. Hamilton Child, Gazetteer of Washington County, Vt., 1783-1889 (Syracuse: Syracuse Journal Co., 1889), p. 62

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