Benjamin Lightbourne/Lightburn of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania and His Descendants
by
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This is the story of the Lightburn family in America.
It is also a history of America, for Lightburns and their allied families seem to be found in every nook and cranny of our nation’s past. They were involved in the early settlement of the Eastern seaboard. They took part in the American Revolution. One person was ousted from his Quaker Church for making and mending shoes for Gen. Washington’s Continental Army at Valley Forge.
Lightburns and their allied families were pioneers in western Pennsylvania and were part of the westward expansion after the Revolutionary War. One ferried other pioneers on their way west across the Youghiogheny River at Budd’s Ferry. During the Civil War it was literally brother against brother — three Lightburn brothers fought for the Union, one who became a Brigadier General, and another brother fought for the Confederacy.
Following the Civil War, many Lightburns headed west. One tried his hand at farming in Kansas until the grasshoppers ran him out. He later settled in California. Still another crossed the plains and Rockies in a covered wagon to open a general merchandise store in what is now Salt Lake City, Utah. Lightburns and their allied families were found in some of the early western mining towns — South Pass City, Leadville, Alma and Cripple Creek among others.
Lightburns and allied families fought in the nation’s wars. They served their country not only in the Revolutionary and Civil wars but also in the War of 1812, World Wars I and II and the Korean War and the Vietnam War.
The Lightburns or allied families worked as blacksmiths, farmers, millers, carpenters, store owners, miners, doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, engineers, railroad men, teachers, newspaper reporters, waiters, painters and preachers. People who helped build this nation. Two of them ran for President of the United States — Democratic Party Candidate Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and 1956 and Constitutional Party Candidate Joseph Benton Lightburn Sr. in 1964. Some descended from John Alden of Mayflower fame. Others descended from John Heydon who landed at Dorchester, Massachusetts aboard the good ship Mary and John in 1630. One family had their Colorado house win the Better Homes & Gardens contest in the Depression years. One was a teacher who worked part-time as a milkman, delivering poems along with milk to his customers.
They lived in places like Fort Defiance, Lost Creek, Duck Creek, Jane Lew, Mingo Flats, Tiskilwa, Blue Eye, Leadville, Cripple Creek, Alma, Red Bluff, Puyallup and Cosmopolis.
They were friends of Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman, poet Henry W. Longfellow and Mormon leader Brigham Young. One Lightburn, who later became a Brigadier General for the Union in the Civil War, had a close boyhood friend — one that would later become a general for the Confederacy, General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.
You can see that the Lightburn story is one that has been painted on a rather large canvas. It all began with the progenitor of this family, Benjamin Lightbourne (the surname got changed to Lightburn about 1800), who settled in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania around 1785.
His origin is unknown but it is possible, maybe even likely, that he was born in Bermuda. Lightbourne, and the variant spelling Lightbourn, is a fairly common name in Bermuda today and has been since the first Lightbourne (John Lightbourne) settled there around 1660. Bermuda itself was settled in 1609 by a group of English colonists who were shipwrecked there on their way to Virginia. Originally known as the Somers Islands, Bermuda became a crown colony in 1684. It is still a British Colony.
The early Bermudans, including John Lightbourne, were English. Thus, if our progenitor did come from Bermuda, his ancestors were probably English. If he did not come from Bermuda, he almost certainly came from the British Isles or possibly Ireland directly.
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About the Book
I first became interested in genealogy when I was about twelve. It was then that my paternal grandmother first introduced me to a book entitled Genealogy of the Fell Family in America Descended from Joseph Fell. This book, which was published in 1891, included my grandfather, Charles McConnell Lightburn. I was struck by the time span covered by the book—nearly three hundred years—and was fascinated by the fact that all of the people in that book were related to one another and to me either by blood or marriage! My grandmother later gave me that book, and it became the first book in my genealogical library. My grandfather and my great-aunt Mary told me that their father had fought for the North during the Civil War by the side of his older brother, who was a brigadier general. This fascinated me. They also told me that there was a town in West Virginia called Lightburn. I couldn’t wait to find it on a map! My own genealogical research did not begin until the late 1970s when I requested the Civil War records of my great grandfather, Calvin Luther Lightburn, and his brothers from the National Archives. During the 1980s, I continued my research, albeit at a very low level of activity. It was not until the early 1990s when I moved to the Washington, DC, area that I became intensively involved in—some might even say addicted to—genealogy. The resources in the Washington, DC, area are extensive, and I ended up spending many happy (and sometimes frustrating) hours conducting research in the National Archives, Library of Congress, and the library of the Daughters of the American Revolution. By 1999, I had amassed a great deal of genealogical information, most of which was stuffed in cardboard boxes. I was encouraged to put what I had on paper by Faye M. (Brown) Lightburn, who had published her book, Revolutionary Soldier Samuel Brown and Some of his Family in 1993. So after attending several related sessions at the National Genealogical Society Conference in the States, which was held that year in Providence, Rhode Island, I finally screwed up my courage and plunged in. I published the original book in 2003. This book is the second and probably last edition.
About the Author
Bob Lightburn, author of this book, was born in Denver, Colorado. He is a great-great-great grandson of Benjamin Lightbourne/Lightburn. He received a B.S and an M.S. degree in engineering from the University of Colorado and University of California at Los Angeles, respectively. Except for seven years as a professor of Computer Science at the State University of New York, he spent his entire professional career as an engineer. He retired in 1999 after 23 years as a systems engineer with Lockheed Martin. He is married to Anne Elizabeth Hodson. They have three grown children and live in New Jersey.