Joseph Burk

Three Hartland Revolutionary soldiers served in the war of 1812, and possibly or probably more. The three were Joseph Burke, Joseph Patterson, and Isaac Morgan, S

military memorial marker for his headstone in the Jenneville cemetery

Lieutenant Jonathan Burke, Jr., his two sons (Jonathan 3d and Joseph) and Isaiah Burke. "Tradition says that a family or families by the name of Burke came up the Connecticut River in a boat or boats to Westminster, Vt., where some of them made a permanent settlement; and others soon moved farther up the Connecticut Valley. Jesse, Simon, and Silas remained at Westminster, but their father, Jonathan, Sr. with the other three sons, Jonathan, Jr., Isaiah, and Solomon, and also Jonathan, 3d and Joseph, sons of Jonathan, Jr. , moved farther up the Connecticut. Jonathan, Sr. and Solomon stopped at Windsor, where they lived and died; they are buried in the 'Old South' Burial Ground at Windsor. Isaiah, and Jonathan, Jr. and his sons came to Hartland, where the first two lived and died. Isaiah died in 1802.

Abel Farwell, a son- in-law (afterward a lieutenant in the War of 1812) who owned a grist and saw mill near the site of A. W. Varney's blacksmith shop, was administrator of his estate. He owned land in Hartland and in Windsor; his Windsor land is described as being bounded on the east by the 'Great River', on the north by the dividing line lately made between his and Solomon Burke's land, on the south by 'Burke's Brook.' Solomon's farm was bounded on the north by the Hartland line, south by land of Isaiah, etc."; Solomon's farm being the one now owned by Harry Weeden — the Penniman farm. (Ref., Burke and Alvord Memorial.)

These six brothers as well as Jonathan 3d and Joseph, sons of Jonathan, Jr.; and Jonathan and Joseph, sons of Jesse; Samuel, son of Simeon; and Benjamin and John, whose exact relationship to the others is not established, were soldiers of the Revolution and their names are on the Vermont Revolutionary Rolls.

"The first militia company raised in that vicinity of which there is any record was raised in Westminster, and Jesse Burke was captain. Jonathan Burke, Jr. was a member of the Vermont committee of safety, with the rank of lieutenant. His son Jonathan was with Warner's men in Canada and died 'before Quebec' of small-pox." His son Joseph served in a New- Hampshire regiment at the Battle of Bennington. He also served in the War of 1812; after the war he left his wife and went to Warner, N. H. , and is buried there. Joseph Burke had one son, Jonathan (the father of the late Albert B. Burke) who owned the farm and built the brick house now owned by R. D. Britton. Mr. Burke kept a hotel here in the old days of teaming to Boston; the place is known today as the "Burk Stand."

A Victim of a British Press-gang: "Jonathan Burke, son of Capt. Jesse, was a soldier of the American Revolution, and for his patriotic services a recipient of a pension from the first enactment of the pension law in the United States to the day of his death. After the close of the Revolution he engaged as a seaman in the mercantile service. Having made a voyage to England, he was there impressed into the naval service of that country, where he remained eight years, and was not allowed to go ashore when it was suspected that there was an opportunity for him to escape. But he did desert in England.

He was from home some sixteen years. During the time he was in the British naval service he was in the fleet commanded by Lord Nelson; he fought at the Battle of Copenhagen. At his decease the newspapers of the day an-nounced the event, with the expressive addition, "A Revolutionary soldier and an honest man." (Burke and Alvord Memorial.)

The Burke and Alvord memorial : a genealogical account of the descendants of Richard Burke of Sudbury, Mass. The Burke memorial