We now go on to the Burgess family, Phineas and Charlotte, whose lives span the nineteenth century and who spent most of their times at the Boot Pond Place in farming and raising eight children. We have photographs of them and information about their daily lives that is not similarly available for Nathaniel and John of previous generations. So time observed begins to move closer to the present. Our imaginations are assisted by reminiscences and we see more clearly what took place here long ago. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XII. PHINEAS BURGESS, 1807-1890 Phineas, son of the second John, bought the homestead from his father at age 27 in 1831. He spent his eighty-three years mostly at Boot Pond, except in Middleboro for a period as a young man. He married Charlotte Thomas, 1812-1903, who had been a school teacher there. She was the daughter of Ezra Thomas. Ezra Thomas, the father of Charlotte, came from Edinburgh, Scotland, so the family tradition runs, and had been wealthy. His first wife was an English lady. He had several children by his second wife, Lucy Sturdevant of Carver, Mass. Sometime during his life in Middleboro the family fortunes were lost. Some of the daughters removed to Lawrence, Massachusetts, and worked in the textile mills there. Charlotte was affectionately known as Aunt Charlotte. From the 1850’s through the 1870’s with the help of neighboring housewives from South Pond village she offered clambakes, picnics and luncheons at the Boot Pond homestead for various social organizations that were popular and well attended. Mary Burgess mentioned that her grandmother, Charlotte, was very fond of lilacs and planted clumps of them around the house and barn. These same clumps of great age are now found in four different spots and bring fragrant blossoms each May. She said her grandmother would refer to them as _lill-acs_. Phineas and Charlotte Burgess had the following children: Phineas Franklin, b. 1833, Isaac Sturdevant, 1835-1925, Ezra Thomas, 1837-1924, Peleg Sprague, 1840-1931, Charlotte Thomas, 1847-1876, Ruth Anna, 1851-1956. In the photograph from left to right they are Peleg, Ruth Anna, Ezra, Isaac, Phineas, Franklin, Charlotte died at age 29. Writing in the _Pilgrim Society Notes, #13_, August 1963, Margaret Kyle describes the picnics held at the Burgess place at Great South Pond. “That was a favorite spot for an all day affair. A summer was not complete without such a picnic. It was _the_ event of the season. If company was to be invited for a visit, the invitation waited until the date of the next Burgess Place picnic. Just before the Fourth was the usual day. Up the winding road through the pine woods the carryalls went, barges, too, full of young people, the horses with indigo tucked into their bridles to keep the flies off.