A Jamaica Plain Confederate

Anna Greenough was the daughter and third child of the second David Stoddard Greenough of Jamaica Plain. She was born in 1817, and in 1838 married Henry King Burgwyn, planter, of Northhampton County, North Carolina, who had attended Harvard. They lived on the Burgwyn plantation, where they had eight children.

Of note to history was their first son, Henry King "Harry" Burgwyn, Jr., also known as "the Boy Colonel. He had studied at West Point, the University of North Carolina and Virginia Military Institute, and at age 19 was elected lieutenant colonel in the Confederate Army. He served in eastern North Carolina and in Virginia, and was killed in the Battle of Gettysburg on July 1, 1863.

Also of note, the couple's second son was William Hyslop Sumner Burgwyn, a name well known to Jamaica Plain historians. Another son whose name is relevant to Jamaica Plain was John Alveston Burgwyn. In the book Victorian Boston Today, Edward W. Gordon informs us that Alveston street on Sumner Hill was named after Anna Greenough Burgwyn's North Carolina estate. The only reference I can find online to the Alveston of the Burgwyns is a death notice from March 11, 1851: On the 20th ult., at Alveston, Halifax Co, the residence of Thomas P. BURGWYN, Esq., Donald, son of Rev. Cameron F. McRAE, in the 3d year of his age.

The grave monument of Anna Greenough Burgwyn can be seen here. The monument to her son Henry King Burgwyn Jr and his picture can be seen here.

Sources: The Pilgrims of Boston and Their Descendants , Inventory of the Burgwyn Family Papers, Abstracts from the Fayetville Observer, John Burgwyn MacRae papers.