John Burroughs : Short Biography

John Burroughs was my paternal 4th great grandfather. According to my current research he was born in 1782 in a town land called Ballysallah sp.? Ballysallagh, Mothell parish ( civil ? ), county Kilkenny.* He came to Upper Canada along with his wife Esther “Hattie” Scharf and their younger children around 1824. They settled in the Ottawa area in the township of Huntley, in the county of Carleton, in what was then known as the province of Upper Canada ( now known as the province of Ontario. Various sources have indicated that they were Church of Ireland practioners, but some also indicate that they may have also been Methodists. There may have been a transition of faith community based on the availability of ties to one’s that were both Irish and Protestant instead of transitioning from CoI to CoE. 

* ( Note that this location is one that was shared with me by paternal cousin, but I have not been able to verify with certainty this location. Although various other sources do verify the names of the locations or jurisdictions the correlation of them doesn’t seem to add up when compared to contemporary map sources. )