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Occasional Bulletins HENRY BURBECK No. 3 The Papers of Henry Burbeck Clements Library October 2014 OccasionalTHE PAPERS OF HENRY Bulletins BURBECK hen Henry Burbeck fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill Schopieray details, other caches of Burbeck material went to the on June 17, 1775, he had just celebrated his twenty-first Fraunces Tavern Museum in New York, the New London County Wbirthday. The son of a British colonial official who was (Connecticut) Historical Society , the Burton Historical Collection at second in command of Old Castle William in Boston Harbor, young the Detroit Public Library, the United States Military Academy, the Henry could not have foreseen that he would spend the next four New York Public Library, the Newberry Library, and to dealers and decades in ded- collectors. But it icated service to wasn’t until 2011 a new American that the majority nation. In of Burbeck’s those forty manuscripts went years, at half up for sale at a dozen Heritage Auctions Revolutionary in Los Angeles. War battles, at We learned about West Point, at that a day before forts and out- the auction, and posts up and our hurried down the west- run at the papers ern frontier, at fell short. Three the court mar- years later, with tial of James the new Norton Wilkinson, and Strange as Chief of the Townshend Fund In 1790 Henry Burbeck established Fort St. Tammany on the St. Mary’s River, the boundary Artillery Corps providing much- between Georgia and Spanish Florida. He commanded there until 1792. Surgeon’s Mate Nathan from 1802 to needed support Hayward presented Burbeck with this view of the finished fort. his retirement for building our in 1815, Burbeck carved out an exemplary record. Far from the nineteenth-century collections, we went back to the dealer who out- most famous of the first generation of this country’s military lead- bid us in 2011 and bought nearly six cubic feet of Burbeck manu- ers, he nonetheless stands tall among them for his many contribu- scripts. tions to the early growth and security of the United States. As any Americana curator or collector can attest, six cubic The recent purchase of a large collection of Henry Burbeck’s feet is a remarkably large pre-1820 archive. William L. Clements papers is a major acquisition for the Clements Library. Burbeck and his contemporaries could acquire such collections in the 1910s manuscripts have been turning up for more than sixty years, as and ‘20s, but today they are quite rare. When American research descendants and others have sold off small parts of his archive. libraries proudly trumpet the acquisition of 100 Revolutionary War The Library’s first Burbeck material arrived in 1951, when we or War of 1812 documents, bringing more than 2,000 Henry bought fifteen 1796–97 James Wilkinson letters to Burbeck from the Burbeck items to Ann Arbor represents a signal accomplishment for famous western Americana specialist Edward Eberstadt. As Cheney the Clements and the University of Michigan. The Burbeck collec- No. 3 The Papers of Henry Burbeck October 2014 tion will complement some of our best sources on the fledg- ling American republic. Our Anthony Wayne, Oliver Hazard Perry, Josiah Harmar, James McHenry, Nathanael Greene, and Northwest Territory papers are rich in information on our early national heritage, and the letters, maps, muster rolls, memoranda, and other documents in the Burbeck folders will offer students and scholars alike a wonderful array of similar material. Researchers interested in the early American frontier from Mackinac (where Burbeck com- manded from 1796 to 1799) to Louisiana, land speculation, the westward spread of American settlement, the develop- ment of the U.S. Army, Native Americans, the growth of transportation and commerce in the Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys, and other aspects of 1783–1815 America will find ample ground to explore in the Burbeck papers. Those familiar with the Clements know that great acquisitions have been a hallmark of the Library since we opened. Additions to the magnificent collection Mr. Clements donated in 1923 have built on existing strengths and created new ones in the resources on our shelves. Whether by gift (Albert H. Greenly’s Lincoln collection in 1939; the Hubert S. Smith maritime library in 1955; Renville Wheat’s maps of the Midwest in 1968; James Schoff’s Civil War archive in the 1970s) or purchase (the Josiah Harmar Papers in 1936; Antonio Pigafetta’s account of the Magellan expedition in 1966; the William Hack nautical atlas in 1979; the Henry Strachey Papers in 1981 and 2010; the John Fitch map of the Northwest Territory in 2006), acquiring great new material has energized the Library and its supporters, enhanced our reputation, and brought new researchers through our doors. The Burbeck Papers rank with these and our other significant collecting coups in the past nine decades, and we’re excited about bringing them here. We hope to have them organized for use soon so that our readers can begin exploring the rich new insights they offer into our nation’s formative decades. — J. Kevin Graffagnino Director Much of Burbeck’s correspondence addresses developments in the design of seacoast artillery, both cannon and their supporting carriages. This sketch depicts an eighteen-pounder, so-called for the weight of the solid, cast-iron ball that it fired. 2 Occasional Bulletins HENRY BURBECK enry Burbeck was Following the British born in Boston, evacuation of Philadelphia in HMassachusetts, on 1778, Henry Burbeck helped June 8, 1754, to William and pursue General Sir Henry Jerusha Glover Burbeck. Clinton’s army, fought in the One of nine children, Henry Battle of Monmouth, served in spent his early years at the 1779 and 1780 campaigns Castle William in Boston in New York and New Jersey, Harbor, where his father was and continued in the defense an official in the Ordnance of the Hudson Highlands from Department of the Royal 1781 to 1783. He was brevetted Artillery. Following the out- major on September 30, 1783. break of hostilities at Burbeck was present when the Lexington, Massachusetts, Americans regained New York and the subsequent siege of City in 1783, after which he was Boston, William Burbeck stationed at West Point until resigned in favor of serving his honorable discharge on with the American forces as January 1, 1784. lieutenant colonel of the In October 1786, Provincial Regiment or Train Burbeck was re-commissioned of Artillery. Henry Burbeck as captain of artillery in a bat- Henry Burbeck (1754–1848). In 1799 a young British officer described him as “a little joined Captain Amos man, as stiff as his boots.” He appears somewhat more genial in this 1806 portrait talion “raised for the defence Paddock’s Provincial engraving by Charles Balthazar Fevret de Saint-Mémin (1770–1852). of the Frontiers,” under the Artillery Company at age command of Major John 20, and, like his father, he fled Boston to serve in the war. He Doughty. Following Shays’ Rebellion in Massachusetts, Burbeck joined Captain Jotham Horton’s volunteer artillery company at commanded a company of artillery guarding the Springfield, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and received a commission as lieuten- Massachusetts, arsenal. He served as commandant of West Point ant on May 19, 1775. Henry was assigned to Edward Burbeck’s from August 1787 until August 1789, when he was sent to guard company of the Massachusetts Artillery Regiment under the Lieutenant Colonel David Humphries and Cyrus Griffin as they command of Richard Gridley, Chief Engineer and Commander attempted to treat with the Creek nation in Georgia. Burbeck of the Artillery. returned to Georgia and built Fort St. Tammany in the spring of Henry Burbeck served during the siege of Boston until the 1790, retaining command of the post until June 1792. By that time British evacuation of March 1776, earning a promotion to first lieu- he had received an appointment as major commandant of the tenant on January 1, 1776. When Richard Gridley’s regiment transi- Battalion of U.S. Artillery. tioned to Henry Knox’s Continental Artillery Regiment, Burbeck was From 1792 to 1794, Henry Burbeck commanded the artillery one of the few retained officers. He proceeded to New York City, of Anthony Wayne’s Legion of the United States in the Northwest where he remained from April 1776 to September 15, 1776. Burbeck Territory, subsequently working under Brigadier General James helped defend the Hudson Highlands while attached to Brigadier- Wilkinson. In late 1793 General Wayne ordered Burbeck to build General Samuel Holden Parsons’s brigade. In 1777, he served with Fort Recovery in Ohio at the site of St. Clair’s Defeat, and, in the Massachusetts Artillery under John Crane’s command before August of 1794, the major participated in the Battle of Fallen joining the main Continental Army later that year. He participated Timbers. In September 1796, Burbeck traveled to Fort Mackinac in the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and Whitemarsh and suf- to receive it from the British under the terms of Jay’s Treaty. Royal fered through the difficult winter at Valley Forge. During these Engineer Second Lieutenant George Landmann visited the garrison engagements, Burbeck’s skills were duly noticed, and by the fall of in the late spring of 1799 and noted in his memoir that the recently 1777 he had advanced to the rank of captain and assumed command promoted “Lieutenant-Colonel Birkbank” of the First Regiment of of the 3rd Continental Artillery Regiment. Artillerists and Engineers was “a little man, as stiff as his boots, Occasional Bulletins 3 commanding officer of artillery, which encluded the duties of inspector of Ordnance . that my services would be as necessary hear [sic] as in any other place.” Burbeck nonetheless went, but he was happy to leave the “frozen regions of the north” in the spring of 1809.
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