Sharing our Links to the Past
by Wally and Frances Gray

 

The Martin Bushman Family

Martin3.jpg (12867 bytes)

Martin Bushman

Introduction

We start our Martin Bushman Family Page with Martin Bushman and Elizabeth Degen Bushman who were the pioneer emigrants to Utah and the first of the family to join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For pedigree charts of both Martin and Elizabeth, go to the familysearch site at http://www.familysearch.org and click on Custom Search. Then click on  Ancestral File and scroll down to where you enter the Ancestral File number. After submitting the number the name will come up. Click on the name which will give you an Individual Record. Then call for a pedigree. (Ancestral File Numbers are found on biographical pages.)  By clicking on "family" at appropriate places you will get the family group records. Sources may also be determined.

(There are, of course, other  Bushman families. To find out if there is information on them (either films or books) go the the familysearch site above and then Custom Search. Scroll down to the Family History Library Catalog link and click on that. Call for surnames and type in the Bushman surname. Several book titles will be displayed. You can, of course, also use the main page of the familysearch site to search for individual names.)

This site draws, in part on the book The Bushman Family: Originally of Pennsylvania and the Rocky Mountain States by Newbern Butt, main author. Its Family History Library call number is 929.273 B964bn. It is located in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building Family History Book Section. It is also on microfilm, FHL 896926, item 5. (In the main library located in the FHL US/CAN Film section.) The film may be rented from one of the Family History Centers (locations of centers are on the familysearch site.)

Ancestors

Abraham Bushman. Martin's father was Abraham Bushman (AFN:1S6J-1N) and his mother was Esther Franks (AFN:1S6J-2T). Abraham was born on April 12, 1767, in Pennsylvania. He is listed in the 1790 Census as residing  at Strasburg Township, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania with a family consisting of one male below 16 years of age and four females. He was on the tax list at Strasburg in 1802 but was receiving mail in Paradise, a short distance away, in 1843.  He is said to have been about five feet, six inches in height and to weigh about 160 pounds. During his later years he must have been in poor financial circumstances, since his son, Martin, found it necessary to postpone his trip to Nauvoo while he built a home for Abraham. (See Martin's biography linked above.) Abraham and Esther had eleven children according to the Ancestral File. Abraham wrote a letter to his son Martin which is published in the Newbern Butt book cited above on page 4. In the letter, written in 1843, he mentions that "times are very hard here and has been hard with the poor people all winter. The richest farmers are breaking up and this stops all kind of trade. John R. Montgomery is busted and a great many others like him has gone all to nothing. The poor and them that are in a middling circumstances cannot get a days work and if they do, no money to pay, nor hardly get grain or trade."

Abraham's wife, Esther Franks, is said to have Welsh blood in her lineage.

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Reproduction of tintype photo of Abraham and Esther Franks Bushman

John Henry Bushman. Abraham's father, John Henry or Hans Heinrich Bushman or Bussman (AFN:2SPH-L2) was born in Mackensen, Hanover, Germany (Prussia) in 1734, and his mother, Maria Barbara Trout (AFN:FPTO-45), was born in Strasburg, Pennsylvania in 1744. To trace these ancestors and other family members follow the instructions given above regarding the familysearch site. John Henry and Maria had ten children according to the Ancestral File.

John Henry (Martin's grandfather) was probably the man listed as landing in Philadelphia on September 19, 1753, from the ship Leatherly. On this ship, whose master was Captain Lecky, were also Henry Bushman and Andreas Bushman. This ship was from Hamburg, but its last port before reaching America was Cowes, on the south coast of England.

John Henry is mentioned in several places in connection with the American Revolution. He performed a tour of duty and furnished a substitute in the Lancaster First Battalion roll of the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh regiments. He was in Captain William Smith's company, which was distinguished in 1780 (Pennsylvania Archives, fifth series, v. 7, p. 49.)

In the History of Lancaster County by Ellis and Evans several entires are found (p. 1063) among which are the following: He owned a still and had several deeds for land in Strasburg. Details are found in the Newbern Butt book cited above on pp. 3 and 4.

Connection to Frances Mildred McNabb Gray

Frances Mildred McNabb Gray is related to Martin Bushman as follows: Her mother is Elsie G. Lundquist McNabb Saye whose mother is Grace Honor Bushman whose father is Jacob Bushman whose father is Martin Bushman.

Related Biographies

Bills, Effie May #8b (Mrs. Jacob Isaac Bushman)
Bushman, Grace Honor #M7 (Mrs.Emanuel Richard Lundquist) (Photo)
Bushman, Jacob #M14 (Photo)
Bushman, Jacob Isaac #M7b and Bills, Effie May #M8b (Photo)
Bushman, Martin #M28 and Degen, Elizabeth #M29) (Photo)
Bushman, Ida Roxana #M7a (Mrs.Archibald Robert Anderson) (Photo)
Bushman, Sarah Erminie (brief biography under Charlotte Turley, child 5)
Degan, Elizabeth #M29 (Mrs. Martin Bushman)
Turley, Charlotte #M15 (Mrs. Jacob Bushman) (Photo)

See also The Theodore Turley Family


Home | Biographical Index
Frances McNabb Gray Ancestor Chart
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Value of Genealogical Stories

 

©1998-2007 Wallace F. and Frances M. Gray. This web page may be freely linked. To contact us send to grayfox2@cox.net  Their home page is http://www.oocities.org/wallygray25/index.html