John Burns Revolution and Family Tree

His Story

On April 19, 1775, as armed resistance spread across Massachusetts, John Burns of New Hampshire entered military service in the opening days of the American Revolution. His surviving pension statements place him among the men who served under New Hampshire officers, fought at Bunker Hill, and endured the difficult expedition toward Quebec.

Burns was one of the thousands of provincial soldiers whose wartime experiences extended beyond a single enlistment or battlefield. His military history involved changing companies, shifting commands, and operations in New England and Canada. In his later pension testimony, he described service associated with Colonel John Stark, Captain Henry Dearborn, Colonel Timothy Bedel, and other officers.

The Battle of Bunker Hill became one of the most significant events in his remembered service. Burns personally identified his participation in that engagement, which took place on June 17, 1775, during the siege of Boston. Later witnesses also associated him with the fighting at Lexington, although that claim requires careful distinction from the veteran’s own recorded statements.

His experiences were not limited to Massachusetts. Burns also reported joining the expedition led by Benedict Arnold through the Maine wilderness toward Quebec, an operation remembered for difficult terrain, shortages of food, and severe hardship.

After the Revolution, Burns became associated with northern New Hampshire, where later histories described him as an early settler of Whitefield. He lived long enough to witness the transformation of the United States from a collection of former colonies into a nation extending far beyond the communities he had known as a young soldier.

He died in Whitefield on May 6, 1852, at the reported age of ninety-six. His pension file and the surviving memorials of his family provide a substantial, though not entirely complete, record of his military career, household, and later life.

Early Life

John Burns was reportedly born August 17, 1755, in New Boston, New Hampshire, then part of the British colonial world of New England. His birth date and birthplace appear in later genealogical and cemetery sources, but the original birth registration has not been independently examined for this biography.

New Boston was a developing inland community during Burns’s childhood. Families depended upon agriculture, local trade, and the labor required to establish farms and roads in a region still undergoing settlement.

Burns reached adulthood during a period of increasing conflict between Great Britain and its North American colonies. By 1775, disputes over parliamentary authority, taxation, colonial self-government, and British military policy had produced a revolutionary crisis.

The available pension evidence establishes his association with New Hampshire military service, but it does not provide a complete account of his childhood, education, or parents. Those details remain subjects for further genealogical investigation.

Revolutionary War Service

The Opening of the Revolution

John Burns’s pension statements associate the beginning of his Revolutionary War service with April 19, 1775, the date of the fighting at Lexington and Concord. His early service was connected with Captain Gordon Hutchins and Colonel John Stark.

The date is historically significant, but enlistment or entry into service on April 19 does not, by itself, prove that Burns was physically present at Lexington or Concord. Later witnesses attributed participation in those events to him, and their testimony must be evaluated separately from his own declarations.

Service Under John Stark

Colonel John Stark became one of New Hampshire’s most prominent Revolutionary War commanders. His regiment participated in the military operations surrounding Boston, including the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Burns personally reported service associated with Stark’s command and identified Bunker Hill among the engagements in which he had participated.

The battle occurred on June 17, 1775, when British troops attacked American defensive positions on the Charlestown peninsula. Although British forces eventually captured the positions, the engagement demonstrated that colonial troops could inflict heavy casualties upon regular British soldiers.

Arnold’s Expedition to Quebec

Burns also described service connected with Captain Henry Dearborn during the expedition led by Benedict Arnold toward Quebec in 1775.

The expedition attempted to approach British-held Quebec from the south by traveling through the difficult wilderness of present-day Maine and along the waterways leading toward the St. Lawrence River.

American soldiers faced exhausting marches, dangerous river crossings, inadequate supplies, and severe weather. The operation became one of the most demanding campaigns undertaken by the revolutionary forces during the first year of the war.

Burns’s identification of Dearborn and the Quebec expedition is important evidence of his military experience. The precise chronology of his individual movements and his participation in particular actions in Canada require comparison with the original pension declarations and surviving unit records.

Later Service

Burns’s pension testimony also connects him with Captain Daniel Wilkins and Colonel Timothy Bedel. These associations place him within the broader network of New Hampshire and northern frontier military operations during the Revolution.

His surviving statements refer to an engagement at Windmill Hill. The precise identification and circumstances of that engagement should be established through closer examination of the original testimony and contemporary military records.

His wartime service involved several officers and enlistment periods rather than one uninterrupted assignment. That distinction is important when reconstructing his military history.

Battles and Campaigns

Military Honors and Recognition

John Burns’s military service received federal recognition through the Revolutionary War pension system. His pension was associated with file S.45528.

Later historical and cemetery sources consistently refer to him as Major John Burns. However, the pension evidence reviewed identifies his Revolutionary War service as that of an enlisted soldier. The title of major should not be treated as proof that he held that rank during the Revolution.

His later recognition by descendants and local historians reflects the continued importance of Revolutionary War veterans within nineteenth-century New England communities.

No particular military decoration or wartime promotion to major has been independently established from the evidence presently reviewed.

Original Military Records

John Burns’s Revolutionary War pension documentation is preserved in the National Archives under pension file S.45528, catalog identifier 54117519.

Revolutionary War Pension

John Burns applied for a Revolutionary War pension under the federal legislation enacted in 1818. The program provided assistance to qualifying veterans of Continental service.

His pension file contains declarations from 1818 and 1822, together with later testimony and administrative records.

In 1822, Burns submitted an inventory of his personal property. The listed possessions were valued at $51.25, a relatively modest amount for a veteran then approaching seventy years of age.

The inventory is significant because it documents his economic circumstances rather than merely his military service. Such declarations were required of many pension applicants as the federal government sought to determine financial eligibility.

His pension was recorded at eight dollars per month, equivalent to ninety-six dollars annually.

The file continued to generate documentation long after the war, illustrating the administrative difficulties veterans sometimes encountered when establishing or maintaining their claims.

From His Account

Military Service Record

Later Life and Burial

After the Revolution, John Burns remained associated with New Hampshire and the northern New England frontier.

Later historical accounts describe him as an early settler of Whitefield, New Hampshire, and credit him with building one of the community’s first houses around 1802. This tradition requires comparison with contemporary town and land records.

His family history was closely connected with Whitefield and neighboring communities. The cemetery records of his wives and children preserve evidence of the household he established there.

Burns’s first wife, Sarah Smith McMaster Burns, died June 4, 1826. The memorial records indicate that he later married Susanna Burns, possibly the Susan Clark named in a reported marriage record dated March 25, 1827.

John Burns died May 6, 1852, in Whitefield, New Hampshire. His reported birth date of August 17, 1755, would make him ninety-six years old at death.

He was buried in Burns Cemetery in Whitefield, in the plot identified as Lot 58.

Susanna Burns died October 10, 1852, approximately five months after her husband. Her memorial identifies Lot 59 in the same cemetery.

Additional family memorials identify Sarah and three of John’s children in plots numbered 56, 57, 60, and 61, suggesting a family burial grouping. The exact physical arrangement has not been independently surveyed.

View John Burns’s Cemetery Memorial

Historical Research Note

Genealogical Research Note

This biography has been compiled from Revolutionary War pension documents, published local histories, cemetery memorials, and genealogical research.

The information reflects the surviving historical evidence and may contain conflicting dates, uncertain family relationships, and retrospective accounts recorded many decades after the events described.

The Yost Post presents these materials as a historical and genealogical resource rather than a definitive account of every aspect of the soldier’s life.

Readers tracing their ancestry are encouraged to consult the original military, civil, church, probate, and cemetery records wherever possible.