A Look at the Burhoe Family Tree from One Green Branch
BURHOE FAMILY HISTORY: the First Burhoe Lived a Long Long Life.
Here’s something I’ve noticed about our family. Going right back to the First Burhoe.
We love the Coastlands. Those areas of forest, farmland, fishing villages, smooth rocks, lighthouses, and occasional seaports that run just inland of the northern seas and oceans. I’ve found a few Burhoes living way inland. Like Saskatchewan, Alberta and Arizona. But the greatest number of us live down the Atlantic coast and back up the Pacific shore.
Why? I’m thinking that it’s because the First Burhoe came from generations of Guernsey Islanders — coastlanders all. And in 1783 settled down to farm a 100-acre lot on Isle Saint-Jean (renamed Prince Edward Island in 1799), down by the open water.
So who was that First Burhoe?
As I’ve written in my “Life & Works” post: “I learned years later that I was supposed to be named ‘John.’
“The first-born male of each generation of Burhoes (such as me) was expected to be named in honour of the very first Burhoe. Born on Guernsey Island in the English Channel, loyalist Jean Brehaut joined the British Army in 1776 at age 20. His name was misspelled ‘John Burhoe’ in the regimental records. And he mustered out of the Royal Nova Scotia Volunteer Regiment in 1783 to settle locally, keeping his new name…” [1]
Based in Halifax, the Royal Nova Scotia Volunteer Regiment was a battalion of infantry raised to protect the Colony of Nova Scotia during dangerous times. It was an age of plundering privateers and pirates. Who would land at small settlements along the seashore to raid and ravage and swiftly return to their boats. With winter of 1775 coming, two New England ships looted Charlottetown. [2] The following year, John Burhoe was one of a small company sent to defend Prince Edward Island. And, receiving “six months provisions,” he settled there upon discharge to work his granted land. And John worked hard. [3]
And the First Mrs Burhoe?
(Our Eve?) Jane Douglas was born in 1758 at the Fortress of Louisbourg, Nova Scotia. Her father, Lieutenant John Douglas of the Scottish Highland Regiment, was killed one year after her birth in the battle for the Plains of Abraham, Québec. Jane’s mother died a few months later. The orphaned girl was “taken and looked after by a man named Henry Gouldrup.” As an adult, Jane (Mellish) was widowed with children when she first met our John.
In her own way, Jane Douglas, daughter of Lieutenant John Douglas, was part of the Scottish emigration happening at that time. [4]
Jane and John married on November 8, 1787 at Frenchford Creek. They settled on John’s Royal grant of 100 acres on York River, a portion of Lot 32. They “built a house and improved near Charlotte Town.” In 1792 they increased their holdings with the purchase of land at Squaw Bay (now called Alexandra Bay), where they built a new farm.
John and Jane would have six children together: Susannah, John, Robert, William, Richard and James. [5]
John’s first cousin, Henry Brehaut, arrived by ship from Guernsey Island on May 16th, 1806. Henry settled as a farmer in the Murray Harbour area of Prince Edward Island. The two sides of the family still have many descendants there — Burhoe and Brehaut — thriving on that land of rich farmlands, green-gabled houses and red-sand beaches. [6]
Other descendants of John and Jane Burhoe wandered south. Settling in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, down the seaboard into Maine and the rest of New England, New York, Virginia, Florida, always along the coasts…
Jane Burhoe died in 1854; she was 96. John Burhoe passed in 1856, age 100. Long lives — “They were always together.” One source says about Jane: “She retained her mental faculties unimpaired to the last, and took a pleasure in reciting the incidents which marked the career of those hardy pioneers.”
A handwritten genealogy from New England (composed circa 1954) I’ve come into concludes: “The history of the Burhoe family shows that they are long lived, sturdy people, quiet, earnest, deep thinkers and religious…” I’ve always heard “loyal, honest, hardworking and bookish” and “strong Christian ties.”
Reviewing their stories over the generations, we seem to have traditionally made worthy farmers, carpenters, boatbuilders, soldiers, writers, preachers and teachers. Good for us!
– Brian Alan Burhoe
SOURCES: Some of the historic information above is from “An Island Family” by Albert William Wood. “A Sketch, Historical and Otherwise” by James Hedley Brehaut. “Burhoe Family of America” by Susan O. Burhoe. And ancestry material sent to my cousin Grace by researchers of the Burhoe Family history in Prince Edward Island, Maine and Massachusetts.
Painting above, “The Sea and Lunenburg, Nova Scotia,” by Mary Lee Burhoe at ==>> Mary Lee Folk Art: Seascapes & Sailing Ships.
Wedding Photo: “Mary Lee & Brian Burhoe, St. Andrew’s United Church, Lockeport, Nova Scotia.”
[1] To read more of Burhoe family history from our own green branch, you’ve gotta See Life & Works of Brian Alan Burhoe – All About Us & More
And OUT OF MY FATHER’S SHAVING BOX: Dad’s War, Algonquin Regiment & Liberation of Holland
Burhoe Family History Notes
[2] On November 17th, 1775, Charlottetown was attacked by New England privateers. Twin two-masted schooners, carrying 100 men each. Benjamin Chappell, wheelwright, postmaster, local preacher and “founder of Methodism on Prince Edward Island,” wrote in his journal, “Charlottetown taken!”
Based on his journal, Ada Macleod later wrote: “This last refers to the descent of two American privateers who, after chasing vessels in the Gulf all summer, decided to end the season in dramatic fashion by attacking the defenceless capital…
“They carried off Phillips Callbeck (the Acting Governor) and Thomas Wright (Surveyor General) and all their belongings, stripped the house of the absent Governor Patterson, including church furniture which had been stored there…” from THE OLDEST DIARY ON PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND by Ada Macleod, The Dalhousie Review Page 466.
For more, see DalSpace Institutional Repository – Dalhousie University.
“Action Stations!”
The closest report of action that our John might have seen was this: On June 6th, 1778, two privateers “plundered” a settlement on Malpeque Bay, on the northern shore of PEI. On June 8th, privateers in two heavily armed schooners chased a vessel into Charlottetown Harbour. Then “stood off” until a Royal Navy ship arrived to chase them away. The British vessel, not a ship-of-the-line by any means, patrolled the harbour, “Watching and warding.” It would have carried members of the Royal N S Volunteer Regiment.
[3] York River, Lot 32, was divided among four veterans of the Royal Nova Scotia Volunteer Regiment. Our John, of course, as well as Peter Mullet, Thomas English and James Simmons.
[4] “In her own way, Jane Douglas was part of the Scottish emigration…”
The Clan Douglas originated in the rolling hills of the Scottish south. The clan rose to prominence during the Wars of Scottish Independence. Due in large parts to the deeds of Sir James Douglas, a loyal ally of Robert the Bruce. But after the Jacobite risings, its members fell on hard times. Many of its men earned reputations by military career, such as Jane’s father.
The traditional Scottish military motto “No one provokes me with impunity” carried over to British Army regiments of volunteered Scotsmen. Including the Scottish Highland Regiment. And the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada.
The first Scottish mass emigration was during the years of the French and Indian War (1754 to 1763) and just after. Settlers from northern England (particularly Yorkshire) and the Scottish Lowlands gravitated to the Southern Appalachian Mountains. While families from the Scottish Highlands chose the Northern Appalachian areas of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, especially Cape Breton.
[5] “Susannah, John, Robert…”
These would become common Christian names in the Burhoe family for generations to come. As well as Mary, Abigail, Knight, Ingram, Freeman and Theophilus. And Thankful Gay Wood (born Squaw Bay, 1822) brought a wonderful first name to the family when she married John Young Burhoe. There have been a number of Thankful Burhoes since.
[6] Origin and meaning of the name Brehaut? Most modern sources casually list the meaning of “Bréhaut” as French for “Bright Hair” or “House on a Hill.” But the Dictionnaire Etymologique de France says the name goes way back to an early German word “Brek-hari” — literally meaning “broken-army.” And referring to soldiers returning home after being discharged. War vets. Indicating that going back a couple thousand years, we came out of the vast Germanic forests.
Although the written references to us are of more recent coastal Bretagne (Brittany, traditional homeland of the Breton people) origin. And the Brehaut family certainly grew and flourished from the early 1300’s in the parish of Torteval on the western coast of Guernsey Island. The most common Brehaut Christian name there has historically been “Jean.” Still is. While spelled “BREHAUT,” on Guernsey the name has always traditionally been given the Norman French pronunciation of “BERHAUT,” i.e. Bur-hoe.
[7] In my case, I was born and raised in the Northern Appalachians of New Brunswick. Trained as a journeyman cook at Holland College Culinary Institute of Canada, in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. And, with my Mary Lee, lived and raised a family in Nova Scotia.
Burhoe Family History: the First Burhoe Lived a Long Long Life
UPDATE: September 16, 2025.
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