"The Bourlands In America"
Carl & May Read
Copyright 1978
PREFACE
This book is the culmination of work begun in 1920 by Judge William Stowt
Bates of Houston, Mississippi. Retiring from the bench in 1916 at the ripe old
age of eighty eight, Judge Bates filled his last years with a variety of
activities, but the one best remembered was the creation of a simple document of
eight legal-sized pages titled TO MY BOURLAND KINDRED. Drawing upon memory,
conversations with other family elders and letters from an Arkansas cousin, Dr.
Addison McArthur Bourland, the Judge composed a brief history of the Bourlands
as a tribute to his beloved mother, Eliza Elvira Bourland Bates. He wrote in his
introductory paragraph:... "now in my ninety first year, I am anxious to
perpetuate and preserve the genealogy and traditions of the ancestral line of my
mother as a last bequest to the loved ones who are of the kindred line." The
Bates Document, as it has come to be known, was completed on 1 March 1921 and is
still circulated among the tribe of Abigail and Ebenezer Bourland as a typical
expression of the love and respect this family holds for its forebears.
Since 1921 the facts contained in the Bates Document have been greatly
augmented by a dedicated band of family historians who, working alone or in small
groups, have collected an impressive mass of family statistics and legends to aid
in preservation of the family genealogy. The first of these researchers to bring
to the job a full understanding of the enormity of the task was a former librarian,
Mrs. Helen Baker Pearce, of Lexington, Kentucky, who drew into her circle such
family historians as Mary Rebecca Bourland Thompson of Wyoming, Helen Mattox
Crawford of Mississippi, Inez Christian Doshier of Texas and Ruth Everest Lewis of
Idaho. Working via the mails, Mrs. Pearce, with collaboration of two men, Dr.
Herschel Murphy and Mr. J. Neil Arrington, both of New Jersey, assembled a
mimeographed booklet of data which forms the basis for THE BOURIANDS IN AMERICA.
This book is a tribute to Mrs. Pearce, Dr. Murphy and Mr. Arrington, who are not
here to see the end product of their labors, and to the rest of the little group
who worked with them so long and so lovingy: Mary Thompson, Helen Crawford, Inez
Doshier, and Ruth Lewis. These seven were the nucleus of what is now The Bourland
Society, which is dedicated to uniting and serving the Bourlands everywhere.
Almost everyone who supported the book project by paying in advance for a copy
also submitted vital family information to add to the collection. Acknowledgements
will be made of these contributions within the text, for space does not allow a full
list of the many Bourland descendants who have written to the Society. Some very
special people must be singled out, however, and honored for their outstanding
efforts: Mrs. Bobbie F. Thorton of Plano, Texas, an enthusiastic supporter from the
beginning; Gabriel Bourland of Alton, Illinois, who diligently spread the word in
his area; Dr. John Bookhout Bourland and wife, Mabel, of Texas, who encouraged the
descendants of Benjamin Bourland to draw up their family charts; Lena Bourland
Nelson and Myrtle Bourland Powell of Lowry City, Missouri, who, with no prior
training in genealogy,compiled significant new data on the clan of William Tandy
Bourland, a son of Slaton and Polly (Reese) Bourland; Marilyn Bourland Mendenhall
of Buffalo, Illinois, whose history of Miles Bourland and his descendants is
published here for the first time. Last of all, I present two remarkably energetic
ladies who serve as living proof of the old adage: "If you want a job done well,
give it to somebody who is busy" -- Mrs. Maida Whitten of Overland Park, Kansas and
Mrs. Virginia McPhail of Van Buren, Arkansas. Maida submitted well over 200 pages
of Bourland-Rutledge history and Virginia did countless interviews and put together
an impressive collection of facts on the Arkansas clan of Ebenezer, The Bourland
Society salutes you, one and all, for a job well done.
It would be ungracious, of course, not to say injudicious and even dangerous
to omit from these plaudits my faithful helper, my critic, my boon companion of 37
years, my good wife, Mabert Read, whose unflagging zeal and devotion to the job
sometimes amazed me as she burned the midnight oil month after month, collecting,
collating, carding, indexing and filing Bourlands for the sheer love of the game.
Without her assistance, advice and encouragement the book would never have been
completed; therefore I am happy to include May as co-author, co-editor, and
research specialist par excellence.
23 November, 1977
James C. Read (Carl)
and
Mabert Elizabeth Read
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this book is to record what is currently known about all the
Bourlands in America in 1978 in the hope that present and future generations will
be encouraged to join the task of preserving the Bourland history and traditions
and continue the search for family origins. The book is not a finished genealogy,
but it contains valuable clues about the many Bourlands and their descendants.
To have included complete documentation of all births, marriages and deaths would
have made the book too large and cumbersome, therefore we present. only basic facts
gleaned from family Bibles, county records, old letters and recent correspondence,
plus more than a little "word of mouth" legend. If it serves to aid future
researchers, then the combined efforts of a multitude of family historians will not
have been in vain.
Being the work of many hands, it is inevitable that the book will contain
errors of fact, spelling and omission. Readers are invited to send all corrections
to the Bourland Society so that we may keep our permanent files as accurate as
possible. All Bourland descendants are aIso invited to send us their family
statistics of births, marriages, deaths to be included in our permanent index. A
revised edition of the book will be published at a future date.
The Bourland surname is of Scottish origin, from the old word "bordland",
meaning "home farm" or that part of a large estate which supported the family table
(bord). The name has been spelled many ways over the last ten centuries and
somewhere along the way the middle "d" was dropped out, probably because of
pronunciation, making it Borland. This form is seen today as well as Boreland,
Boland, Bolan, Bolen and Bourland. Some family legends have hinted at French
origins because the spelling Bourland has a Gallic look about it, but no sound
evidence has been uncovered as proof of that. (Editor's note: my own belief is
that the spelling was influenced by the Normans after 1066. English documents of
the 12th and 13th centuries reflect a strong French influence in spelling even
those basic Anglo-Saxon names that had existed before the Normans arrived. The
first written record of the name Bourland is found in a tax list of Devonshire in
the 14th century showing Ricardus de atte Bourland as a resident land owner.)
While no authentic coat of arms has been found, the Bourland name is nevertheless
ancient, distinctive and a name to bear proudly.
The Borlands and Bourlands fled Scotland with their Protestant neighbors and
settled for a time in Ireland in the 17th century. Hence the term "Scotch-Irish."
English authorities, however, soon banned all religions other than the Anglican
and the Bourlands once again packed up the few meager possessions they could carry
with them and sought asylum in France and in the American colonies. Those hapless
migrants who landed in France soon discovered that the leniency won by the
Huguenots was of short duration and some of them may have returned to England or
come to America. The actual history of those very early Bourlands remains to be
explored.
Our task rests with the Bourlands in America. With few exceptions, those who
today bear the name Bourland are descended from one man, John Bourland, who
according to family legend, left his vast estate in Londonderry to escape the
wrath of King George II and landed in Virginia, where he married a fair damsel
named Catherine Randclph about 1750. Some legends called him "Lord John Bourland"
and others hint that he was a descendant of Pocahontas the Indian princess who
embraced Christianity. The hard truth, if we are fortunate enough to unearth it,
may be far less romantic than these oral legends and traditions. We know nothing
of John's Irish lineage, but we can make a few learned guesses: he was not French,
for his name was not Jean and he was not Dutch, for his name was not Jan. He is
recorded as John Bourland and all his sons bore good English given names: William,
Alexander, John, Ebenezer, James, Benjamin, Archibald and Presley. He was able to
read and write and he transmitted those advantages to his children. He was a
Protestant and raised his family in that faith. Of his daughters we know almcst
nothing. Included in this book is one Isabella Bourland, who married Michael Bacon.
Isabella was born in Pennsylvania about 1761 and there is no sure sign that she was
a daughter of John Bourland. Perhaps a reader will be able to tell us more about
the daughters of John.
That John Bourland lived in Virginia is unquestioned. His son, William, was
born in Virginia and served with other Scotch-Irish soldiers of Augusta County,
Virginia, in the Revolutionary War. John Bourland himself was a patriot by reason
of his supplying items to the Revolutionary forces and this is established by a pay
voucher issued to him in September 1781 by the upper board for the District of
Salisbury, North Carolina as reimbursement for "sundry publick claims." The state
census of North Carolina for the year 1787 lists John Bourland as a head of
household in Wilkes County with four males under age 16 and 2 females in his
household. After 1787 no clear record is found of our progenitor and it is likely
that he died before 1800. The first federal census, taken in 1790, showed numerous
entries in South Carolina for Bolin, Bowlen, Bolen, Bolan, Bowland, Bowling and
Bolling. Some of these may have been Bourlands, for the census takers were often
only semiliterate and they spelled names phonetically. Indeed, over the years
since that first census, the Bourland name has been spelled more than thirty ways
in census books, but somehow it has survived. A few families have adopted one or
another of those erroneous forms and perpetuated them. One form, Bouland, is seen
today in Kentucky, Illinois and various parts of the USA. (Almost all of these are
descendants of James Bourland, whose grandson, Isaac, changed the name to Bouland.)
The Catherine Randolph legend seems to have been grafted onto the Bourland
family tree long after John's death, for not one of his sons carried forward the
Randolph name in any form, despite a tradition of baptising at least one son with
the maiden name of the mother. It is likely that the Randolph story came about
because of the similarity between the names Bourland and Bolling. The Randolph-
Bolling connections are fully documented along with the Bolling kinship with
Pocahontas.
It is not until 1810 that we are on firm ground and some curious researcher
could devote years to digging into Bourland history prior to 1810 in the Carolinas
and Virginia and even Pennsylvania. The census of 1810 for Hopkins County,
Kentucky listed these Bourlands:
MALES FEMALES
Head of Household A B C D E A B C D E
Patsey Bourland 3 1 1 3 1
John Bourland 1 1 2 1 3 1 1
Ebenezer Bourland 4 2 1 1 1 1 1
Benjamin Bourland 2 1 1 4 1 1
(Key) A = under age 10
B = 10-16 yrs
C = 16-26 yrs
D = 26-45 yrs
E = over 45 yrs
Patsey may have been a misspelling of Presley, whose son, Miles Bourland,
settled in central Illinois. The census record is not proof of kinship, of course,
but it is most likely that these were four of the sons of "Immigrant" John Bourland
from Northern Ireland. Family ties were strong and brothers tended to migrate
together and settle in the same communities. William, the eldest son of John, died
in Hopkins County before the census of 1810. The other three sons were found on
the 1810 census living in other counties of the western part of Kentucky.
It is from the springboard of western Kentucky that the Bourlands jumped off
to settle in Illinois, Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas, Texas and
California. The migration that began after the winning of American independence
was greatly stimulated by the peace settlement after the War of 1812, which opened
vast new lands in the south and west and stirred dreams of riches. The Bourlands,
like the rest of the new nation, were restless and eager to claim as much land for
themselves as tthey could and they traveled by flatboat, by wagon-train and on
horseback into the wilderness lands to help build these United States. The record
of their progress is written across the length and breadth of this country today,
but the story is not finished yet. You and your children are still writing it, day
by day.
(
geocities.com/heartland/prairie) (
geocities.com/heartland)