Bourne, Richard

Bourne, Richard a missionary among the Marshpee Indians, was among the early English settlers of the town of Sandwich, on Cape Cod, Mass. Being a man of an earnest, missionary spirit, he went (about 1658) among the Indians who resided in Marshpee, a place a few miles from Sandwich. His work was successful, and he gathered a church of converted Indians, of which he was ordained the pastor, Aug. 17, 1670, the services being conducted by Eliot and Cotton. Satisfied that no permanent prosperity would attend the people for whose temporal and religious prosperity he was laboring, unless they had a fixed local habitation, he obtained a formal deed of Marshpee from those Indians who claimed it as their property. His efforts resulted in greatly promoting the welfare of his people. He died about 1685. See Mather's Mag. 3, 199; Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc. 1, 172, 196-199, 218; 3, 188-190; 8:170. (J. C. S.)