SEVENTH GENERATION

102. Lieutenant Colonel William Ward Burrows⁽⁴⁴⁾⁽⁴⁵⁾ was born on Jan 16 1758 in South Carolina. He died on Apr 5 1805 in Washington, D.C.. The only surviving son of a very prominent and successful lawyer and merchant, William Ward Burrows received a first-class education and was admitted to the Inner Temple at the Inns of Court, London, on May 25 1772.

He served as an officer in the South Carolina Marines during the Revolution and when the United States Marine Corps was established by law, on Jul 11 1798, President John Adams appointed him as its first Commandant with the rank of major. He was soon promoted to lieutenant colonel, the rank of the commandant of the Corps for the next several decades.

The authorized strength of the Corps initially was one major, four captains, twenty-eight lieutenants, and 848 enlisted men. In 1800 the capital moved to Washington, D.C., from Philadelphia and when Thomas Jefferson, a friend of Burrows, became President, the two rode out together on horseback looking for a suitable site to establish the Marine Corps barracks and commandant's quarters and chose one near the site of what would be the Washington Navy Yard. The Marine Barracks is now the oldest continuously ultilized military post in the United States with the exception of West Point (see No. 476). While the original barracks have long been replaced, the Commandant's house built by Burrows remains the official residence of the Commandant of the Marine Corps today. It was the only official building that was not torched by the British when they attacked Washington in the War of 1812.

Col. Burrows also instituted the Marine Corps Band. Lacking money for it from Congress, Burrows wrote every officer in the Corps and suggested that they contribute a percentage of their pay towards the purchase of instruments. His reprimand of one officer who was either reluctant or delinquent in this forced contribution is in Marine Corps files. Much of his correspondence while Marine Corps Commandant is in the National Archives and is a fascinating window into the world in which he lived.

On New Year's Day, 1801, the first day the 19th century, Burrows marched his band to the White House and staged a concert for President John Adams, who was delighted. Marine Corps Band White House concerts became a regular event in the new capital, and the Marine Corps Band to this day has a central and official place in White House ceremonies and entertaining.

Failing health brought about Col. Burrows's retirement from the Corps on Nov 7 1804. He died early the following year. "The most benevolent of men, " according to an obituary in the Charleston City Gazette of Mar 28 1805, "he had devoted himself to the benefit of his fellow creatures; but that malignant friend Ingratitude was ever his reward. After struggling with severe illness he resigned existence with the celestial calmness of a good man." Why the newspaper should say that ingratitude was the reward of his service, which would appear to have been singularly successful, is unknown.

He was buried in Washington, D.C., and was reinterred, with full honors, in Arlington National Cemetery across the Potomac in 1892, when Arlington was established.

In 1940 a Grace Line ship taken into the United States Navy as a troop transport was renamed the U.S.S. William Ward Burrows in his honor. He was married to Mary Bond on Sep 13 1783.

103. Mary Bond was born in 1766 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She died in Feb 1803 in Washington, D.C.. Children were:

i. William Burrows⁽⁴²⁾⁽⁴⁶⁾ was born on Oct 6 1785 in Kinderton, Pennsylvania. He died on Sep 6 1813 in at sea, off Portland, Maine. William Burrows commanded the sloop-of-war Enterprise in its battle with the Royal Navy brig Boxer, one of the most famous naval episodes in the War of 1812.

Educated in the classics, and speaking both French and German fluently, Burrows was warranted a midshipman in 1799 and joined the frigate U.S.S. Portsmouth in January 1800. During his cruise on the Portsmouth he participated in the capture of two French privateers. In 1803 he was posted aboard the U.S.S. Constitution as an acting lieutenant and served on her all during the Tripolitan war. He also served aboard the President and the Hornet, serving on the latter as first lieutenant.

In 1811 he took a leave of absence for a year and sailed to India and China on board the merchant ship Thomas Penrose. On his return the vessel was captured by a British ship, the War of 1812 having broken out, and he was taken to Barbadoes as a prisoner of war. He was soon paroled and on his return to the United States was given command of the 16-gun Enterprise.

Sailing from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on Sep 5 1813, he fell in with the Boxer off Portland, Maine, the next day, and a fierce forty-five minute engagement followed. The British captain was cut in two by chain shot and Burrows himself was mortally wounded, but lived long enough to accept the British surrender.

The Enterprise and its captive put into Portland, and there the two captains were buried side by side, where they remain to this day, a touching monument to a long-forgotten family quarrel.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a native of Portland, wrote of the battle in his famous poem "My Lost Youth":

I remember the sea-fight far away
How it thundered o'er the tide!
And the dead captains, as they lay
In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay,
Where they in battle died.
And the sound of the mournful song
Goes through me with a thrill:
A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.

Congress awarded a gold medal to his nearest surviving male relative and two ships in the U.S. Navy, DD-29 in the First World War and DE-105 in the Second were named for him. The name of his ship, Enterprise, has been borne by a number of United States naval vessels since, most notably the aircraft carrier that fought gallantly throughout the Second World War in the Pacific. She was one of the three American carriers at the Battle of Midway, facing a vastly superior Japanese fleet. And it was from her deck that the dive-bomber strike that sank four Japanese carriers and carried the day was launched. It gave the United States Navy the greatest victory in its history, one that ranks in consequence with Salamis and Trafalgar. The current U.S.S. Enterprise, the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, was built in the 1960's.

There is an article on Captain Burrows in the Dictionary of American Biography.
51 ii. Frances Harriet Burrows.

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