Burhoe, John

From: An Island Refuge- Loyalists and Disbanded Troops on The Island of Saint John, The Abegweit Branch of UELAC, 1983

  • JOHN BURHOE is recorded as a private on the final muster roll of the Royal Nova Scotia Regiment dated June 12, 1784. He and three other privates with grants on York River, Lot 32 had built a house and improved the grants which were near Charlotte Town. No doubt they had come to the Island in June 1778 when their company, under Major Hierlihy, was …
  • Family tradition says that John Burhoe’s forebears were Huguenots who were forced to flee to Guernsey in the Channel Islands during the religious persecution in France. No information is available at present to tell when John arrived in America, nor when he joined Major Hierlihy’s Independent Companies which were enlisted in New England. It has been said that the Brehaut family who came from Guernsey to Prince Edward Island in 1806 had been told before their departure to look up their cousin. If that is correct, John “Burhoe” had relatives on the Island of Guernsey.
  • John settled at Squaw Bay, now called Alexandra. In the census of 1798 he was living on Lot 49 as the head of a household of eleven: three males under sixteen, three males between sixteen and sixty, three females under sixteen, and two females between sixteen and sixty.
  • He had married Jane Douglas, the daughter of Captain William Douglas. She was the widow of Captain Thomas Mellish who had fought with the British in the American Rebellion. Jane, it is said, was also the widow of a Mr. Gratto/Gretteau before marrying John Burhoe.