Boring into History, Part I

      In William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet the leading lady wonders, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet” (II.ii.1-2). Unfortunately for the genealogist it is not sweet fragrance but the drudgery of parsing names on which the history of the Boring family hinges. Every conceivable phonetic manifestation of “Boring” is found in the record, from Boren and Borrin to Boreing and Bouring. Far from inducing boredom, these discrepancies and diversions put one on a path that is contradictory, perplexing, and vexatious. The narrative I present is my best interpretation of documents that are sometimes inadequate and other researchers’ findings that are frequently in disagreement. For the purposes of crafting a usable and understandable account of our branch of the Boring family, I have made elisions and assumptions, which while not academically laudable seems prudent given the lack of reliable sources. Let us hope this is not an instance in which a recently-seen bumper sticker pertains: “Genealogy: Annoying the living. Confusing the dead.”

The First Generation
      Arthur C. Wardle in his 1938 book Benjamin Bowring and His Descendants: A Record of Mercantile Achievement traces the “Boring” patronymic to Stephen Bourying in 1303 in Devonshire, a county in southwest England known for its Celtic heritage, mild climate, and bucolic landscape. Another source posits the derivation as northern European and while unsure of the meaning suggests a north German surname formed from the Slavic word for “pine” or “strife.” The first in our ancestry to reach these shores was probably John Boreing, born in England in the early 1600s, who landed in southeastern Virginia in 1656. According to George Cabell Greer’s 1912 Early Virginia Immigrants, 1623-1666, he was among nineteen indentured servants whose passage was paid by the merchant George Abbott. Nell Marion Nugent’s Cavaliers and Pioneers discloses that Abbott was granted 1,000 acres in Nansemond County (present-day city of Suffolk) on October 4, 1656, for the transportation of twenty passengers to Virginia and that among them was John Bowinge, most likely a misprint of “Boering.” Abbott was a participant in the headright system, which encouraged the importation of labor to the Virginia colony and reimbursed the cost of transportation with land grants. He also availed himself of the practice of indentured servitude, paying the way of poor immigrants in exchange for their labor, particularly in the rapidly ascendant tobacco fields.

There is an objection which the English make. They say that during the months of June, July, and August, it is very unhealthy; that their people, who have then lately arrived from England, die during these months, like cats and dogs, whence they call it the (sickly) season. When they have this sickness, they want to sleep all the time, but they must be prevented from sleeping by force, as they die if they get asleep. This sickness, they think, arises from the extreme heat that exists there. Then, again, when it has been a half-an-hour very hot, if the wind shifts and blow from the northwest, it immediately becomes so cold, that an overcoat may be worn. Thus, this country appears to lie in the dividing line between the heat and the cold....
—David Peterson DeVries, Voyages from Holland to America, A.D. 1632 to 1644

      John arrived in the New World as an indentured servant, part of a wave of around 50,000 between 1630 and 1680, during which staggeringly high mortality rates required constant replenishment. The average term that an adult indentured servant worked before being released from his contract was four to seven years, and it is likely John labored for a comparable period as he next appears in the records a decade later in neighboring Lower Norfolk County (now the city of Chesapeake). According to Virginia Land Patents of the Counties of Norfolk, Princess Anne & Warwick, John sold 300 acres to John Ladd on October 11, 1670, having acquired said land from Roger Fountaine on August 28, 1665. On January 1, 1673, John filed his will in Lower Norfolk, and following his death in the late spring of 1677 it was probated. Though we don’t know the name of John’s wife, this document reveals the names of his two sons.

In the name of God I John Bouring doth will and bequeath unto my two Sonnes being Edmond & John Bouring all my Land being six hundred acres of land and to be equally divided betweene them when they shall come of age...
witness: Wm Hatfield Hugh Hoskings.
Jno. Bouring
Deposition of Hugh Hoskings, aged 34 yeares or thereabouts 17) June 1677.
Adam Keeling. Hugh Hoskins & Seale.

    

 Norfolk and vicinity

New Country to Backcountry
      Edmond Bouren was born around 1660 and was on the cusp of his majority when he became fatherless. Around age twenty he married a woman named Sarah. In 1682 in Lower Norfolk County he began selling land and in 1685 had acquired holdings beyond his father’s bequeathal. Edmond’s name appears on a land description dated November 7, 1704, in Currituck Precinct, then part of Albemarle County and now in the northeastern corner of North Carolina. “Currituck” translates from one of the indigenous languages as “the land of wild geese,” an appropriate designation given that the area, separated from Virginia by the Great Dismal Swamp, became a hideout and refuge for the insurrectionists of Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676. Edmond made his will on July 29, 1711, and died soon thereafter. It was transcribed from the will book by researcher T. J. Shumaker:

In the Name of God Amen. I Edmund Bouren of Corotuck in No. Carolina being Sick & weak of body but of perfect mind & memory, & calling to mind yt all [unclear word] must Dye Doe make & ordaine this my Last will & Testamt. revokeing other will or wills by me formerly made. First I give my body to ye Earth from whence itt was taken to be buried In such Decent manner as my Executrix hereafter named Shall think Conveniant. Secondly I Give my Soul to almighty God who Gave itt hopeing by his merits to receive forgiveness for all my sins & transgressions which I have Committed in this wicked World

I Give to my Son Jos. Bouren my Bay mare & all her Increase. I Give to my Son Jos. Bouren my Bay horse coult. I Give to my Son Jos. Bouren & my mill. I Give to my Son Jos. Bouren my plantation & tract of [land] on youpon ridge after my wives decease to him & his heirs forever.

I Give to my loving wife Sarah Bouring my Sorrel mare & all her Increase....

My will & Desire is that my Son Jos. Bouren have all ye Cattle in my Stock wch. are of his proper marke, also my will & desire is that my Daughter Sarah Bouren have all ye Cattle in ye Stock wch. are of her proper marke....

I Give my Negroe man Leboe to my wife Sarah Bouring During her life & after her Decease to my two Daughters Jane Bouren & Susannah Bouren, also my will & Desire is that my loving wife Sarah Bouren have all of rest(?) part of my Estate att her Disposel Except one Gold ring wch I Give to my Daughter Mary Bouren, also I make & ordaine & appoint my loveing wife Sarah Bouren my whole & Sole Executrix of this my last will & Testament to see itt Duly performed & to pay all my lawfull & just Debts, also my will & Desire is yt my Brother Benja: Tulle & my brother Williams & my friend Jos. Wicker may oversee my Estate and prevent any [unclear word] wch. may or shall happen in any case whatever as wittness my hand & Seal this 29th of July anno Dom: 1711

      According to Edmond’s will he had one son, Joseph Boring, who was born in the early 1680s in Currituck Precinct. He inherited his father’s land in what is now Perquimans County, west of Currituck along the northern rim of the Albemarle Sound. Little else is known about him; there is no extant will or record of marriage. Some researchers believe he had several sons, one of whom was William Boring, born in 1701 or 1702. William married Elizabeth Larkin, about the same age as he, in 1722 in Currituck. A 1755 tax list has William in newly-formed Orange County, at that time a vast district in the Piedmont region near the combustible frontier between westering European settlement and the natives’ territory. There is no further information about William except attestation from friends about his dying wishes. From the Orange County court, June 20, 1768:

Then came before me William Lea one of his Majesty's Justices of the Law for the County of Orange, John Currie and James Culbertson both planters and residing (?) in said County and made Oath, Seperately that they on the 11th of this month, heard William Boring on his Death Bed then Will in favor of Charles & Joseph Boring to Charles he left a piece of gold value Sixty Shillings, also a Negro Boy which Joseph Boring may keep, or pay his Brother Charles the Sum of thirty pounds which of either he pleases, and then to be paid by said Joseph when its suits without any process in Law, to be commenced against his Brother Joseph, all the Rest of the Estate to remain in the Possession of Joseph Boring, for his own proper use & his Heirs forever. Given under my hand this twentieth day of June One Thousand Seven Hundren & Sixty Eight.

From Inventories & Accounts of Sales, 1758-1785 edited by William D. Bennett we learn that on January 25, 1770, the executor of William’s will presented an inventory to the court: “1 feather Bed and Rugg, one Copper Skillet, one warming Pann, one Hamma, 1 Rasor and Hone, one Molatto Boy named James, four DoubleLoons, Two Pistol, and one Piece of Gold Value 30 shillings.” William’s wife Elizabeth is alleged to have died not long after her husband, but it seems she was still living in August 1772 when her father Alexander Larkin named her in his will. I have been unable to locate their gravesites or pinpoint the circumstances of Elizabeth’s expiration.

Darling, how could I stay here without you,
I have nothing to cheer my poor heart,
This old world would seem sad, love, without you,
Tell me now that we never will part.

Oh I’ll pawn you my gold watch and chain, love,
And I’ll pawn you my gold diamond ring,
I will pawn you this heart in my bosom,
Only say that you’ll love me again.
—Thomas P. Westendorf

Trouble on the Frontier

      In contradistinction to the paucity of sources about his parents, Joseph Boring’s role in the Regulator movement ensures his memory is not lost to us. Joseph was born in on January 30, 1730, and married Susannah Teague around 1750. He served as a juror in Orange County in 1753, a year before the founding of Hillsborough (contemporary site of UNC-Chapel Hill) as the county seat along the Great Indian Trading Path. In 1754 his name appears on deed record in Granville County and in 1756 in Orange County. In 1764 he was appointed overseer of a stretch of road between the Hyco and Eno Rivers. The following year he joined thousands of North Carolina frontiersmen in the War of the Regulation, a revolt against colonial authorities that heralded the American Revolution.

 1768 plan of Hillsborough by Claude Joseph Sautier

      The coastal plain of North Carolina had been settled for several decades before significant numbers of pioneers began moving into the backcountry west of the fall line in the 1730s. Many of these settlers were Scots-Irish and German and adherents to the new evangelical denominations that preached individualism and local autonomy. These sectional and cultural differences were an early episode in America’s long-running East-West divide, and they generated grievances against colonial authorities, including charges of venality, corruption, a rigged legal system, and an unfair tax code. In 1765 the first of many petitions were circulated seeking restitution and by 1768 the petitioners were calling themselves Regulators as they sought to regulate their own affairs. Sheriffs and judges, as implementers of the tax and legal systems, were particular targets of popular ire, which was at first expressed peacefully but increasingly manifested in mob violence.
      In January 1771 the legislature passed and the governor William Tryon signed An Act for Preventing Tumultuous and Riotous Assemblies, and for the More Speedy and Effectually Punishing the Rioters, and for Restoring and Preserving the Public Peace of This Province. He then called up the militia and led it halfway across the colony to confront the Regulators. When the two forces met west of Hillsborough on May 16, 1771, the governor warned the Regulators to disarm and disperse before negotiations could occur, to which they replied, “Fire and be damned.” In the ensuing Battle of Alamance the insurrection was crushed, and six Regulators were afterwards hanged for treason. The governor intended to see order restored quickly and was thus liberal with pardons, issuing amnesty to all but sixteen Regulators. Our unlucky outlaw ancestor Joseph Boring was among those excluded from this June 11, 1771, edict by the governor:

Whereas, I am informed that many Persons who have been concerned in the late Rebellion are desirous of submitting themselves to Government, I do therefore give notice that every Person who will come in, either to mine or General Waddells Camp, lay down their Arms, take the Oath of Allegiance, and promise to pay all Taxes that are now due or may hereafter become due by them respectively, and submit to the Laws of this Country, shall have His Majestys most gracious and free pardon for all Treasons Insurrections and Rebellions done or committed on or before the 16th Inst., provided they make their submission aforesaid on or before the 10th of June next. The following Persons are however excepted from the Benefit of this Proclamation, Viz. All the Outlaws, the prisoners in Camp, and the undernamed persons....

      When the decree was issued all but a handful of dead-enders had sworn loyalty oaths to the Crown, so Joseph’s exclusion may be attributed to his leadership in the insurrection or his refusal to accept the movement’s vanquishment. As William Laurence Saunders notes in Preface to Volume 8 of the Colonial Records of North Carolina, a bittersweet irony of the Regulators’ defeat is that five years later many of their demands were incorporated in the new state constitution of 1776, and their rebellious spirit animated the war for independence from Great Britain. Joseph was not around to witness these auspicious developments, however, as he died in May 1775, his will having been made in Orange County on January 11, 1775:

Susannah Borin to have her living on the plantation during her widowhood, her bed, and furniture, negro Hannah to wait on her as long as they live, horse, saddle, and bridle. John Borin to have negro Jack; James Borin to have negro Caleb; William Borin to have the wagon, gears, and four horses, RAIN, BON, BUCK, and JACK; Isaac Boring to have gristmill; Joseph Borin, Jr. to have milken cow, Idom: David Borin to have 20 lbs paid to him by his oldest brother, John, the said David shall come of age. Susan Borin, Becky Borin, Phebe (FEBY) Borin, SERE (ZERE) to have divided among them all the balance of my estate and Cousin Fatsy (Patsy) Clarke. David Borin to have the plantation whereon I now live when he comes of age. Charles Stephens and James Currie to see due performance of my will.

The dowager Boring’s bereavement was curtailed by her remarriage to John Browning, a recent widower himself. On August 16, 1776, six weeks after the Declaration of Independence was issued from Philadelphia, Susannah sold Joseph’s land along a fork of the Hyco River for £100 of “Proclamation Money,” the value of which was set by Queen Anne’s directive in 1704 and was therefore nullified by the colonies’ independence. In November 1777 Susannah and John were appointed administrators of Joseph’s estate, which they liquidated at auction on April 6, 1778. Though he died before its consummation, Joseph’s legacy touched America’s quest for self-government in two ways: the aforesaid role of the Regulators’ as a catalyst of the American Revolution and his son’s participation in the war for independence, which will be discussed in the second essay.