William H. Burgess and Harriet Dunbar Burgess Collection

William Henry Burgess was born on January 4, 1832 in Providence, Rhode Island, son of Richard H. Burgess and Hannah W. Gladding Burgess. As a young man, he began working as a seaman. Burgess served as the third mate on the Polar Star’s 1856-1860 whaling voyage out of New Bedford, Massachusetts; it is unclear if he was on the Polar Star’s previous voyages. After the conclusion of this whaling voyage, William enlisted in the Civil War with Company H, Massachusetts 15th Infantry Regiment on May 25, 1861. He was promoted to corporal and on February 22, 1862 he mustered out and transferred to the U.S. Navy, serving with the Western Gunboat Flotilla, where he was a bosun mate on the Judge Torrence.

Harriet I. Dunbar was born in August 1839 in New Jersey, daughter of Amos B. Dunbar and Isabella Ward Dunbar, both natives of Massachusetts. After Harriet’s mother’s death, her father remarried, to Anna Eliza Denton Dunbar. Harriet had two siblings, Amos and Charles, the latter of whom died in early childhood. Her father was a straw hat maker.

William Burgess and Harriet Dunbar were married around 1865. They had four children: Henry G. Burgess (b. 1867), Ralph E. Burgess (b. 1881), Isabella Gladding Burgess Greene (b. 1871), and Ida Gertrude Burgess Langill (b. 1874). All four survived to adulthood, although Henry passed away at age 29. The family lived in Gardner, Massachusetts; William is listed in several censuses as working in a chair shop, and was listed as a mechanic in his later life, while Harriet kept house.

William H. Burgess died on May 16, 1911; Harriet died in 1918, and both are buried in the Green Bower Cemetery in Gardner, Massachusetts.