Chatham-Montgomery County GaArchives Biographies.....Bourne, William H. 1844 - living in 1913
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 October 15, 2004, 6:26 pm

Author: William Harden
p. 719

   GEN. WILLIAM H. BOURNE. One of the important industrial enterprises that
contribute materially to the commercial prestige of the city of Savannah is the
Bourne Lumber Company, of which the gentleman whose name inaugurates this
paragraph is president. He has for many years been one of the aggressive and
enterprising business men who have aided in the up-building of the city and is
especially well entitled to consideration in this volume. He comes of a
prominent southern family, both sides of which produced Revolutionary soldiers
and splendid citizens in times of peace and he is himself a veteran of the Civil
war. He has for a long number of years been engaged in lumber manufacturing and
in various phases of the lumber business.

   General Bourne was born in Hanover county, Virginia, November 23, 1844, the
son of John H. and Mary A. (McLeod) Bourne. His father was born at Hanover Court
House, Hanover county, Virginia, and came with his family to Georgia in the year
1855. After living a short time in Chatham county he located permanently in
Effingham county, where he established a sawmill, and engaged in lumber
manufacturing and as a planter. He was a successful man of affairs, but died in
comparatively early life, passing away in 1870, at the age of fifty-four. He was
the son of Claiborne Bourne, who in turn was the son of Reuben Bourne, both of
Hanover county, Virginia, the latter a soldier in the Continental line in the
Revolutionary war.

   The subject's mother, born in Richmond, Virginia, was the daughter of George
W. McLeod, who was the son of Daniel McLeod, a native of Edinburgh, Scotland,
who came to America from "the land o' cakes" and settled in Alexandria,
Virginia. The maternal grandmother of the subject was Eliza M. (Tinsley) McLeod,
daughter of Col. Jack Tinsley, of Virginia, who was a soldier in the Revolution.
Mrs. John H. Bourne was born in 1822 and died in 1881.

   The fact that William H. Bourne was a very young man at the outbreak of the
Civil war did not prevent his immediate enlistment and it was his portion to see
some of the hardest service of the great conflict. In 1861, quite at the
beginning of hostilities, he enlisted at Savannah for service in the Confederate
army, becoming a member of Company H, First Volunteer Regiment of Georgia.
Company H was the second company of the Oglethorpe Light Infantry, one of
Savannah's famous and historic military companies. In this service he was first
engaged at Fort Pulaski, going there in October, 1861, and with the rest of his
company he was captured there on May 11, 1862, and taken to Governor's island,
New York. From there they were transferred to Fort Delaware, where in August,
1862, the company was exchanged. Upon the reorganization of his company in
Savannah, Mr. Bourne continued with it and spent the summer of 1863 on Morris
island, participating in the battle of Battery Wagner. In November, 1863, they
returned to Savannah for winter quarters and in the latter part of April, 1864,
they joined Mercer's Brigade in north Georgia. They participated in the battle
of Lost Mountain, where General Bourne was wounded, and also in the battles of
Kennesaw, Peach Tree Creek, Atlanta, Jonesboro and Lovejoy Station. Mercer's
Brigade then went with the army that made the expedition into Tennessee, but on
account of other duties, the forces with which Mr. Bourne's company were engaged
did not engage in the actual fighting at the battle of Franklin. They went on to
Nashville, but were not engaged in the battle of Nashville, having been sent to
Murphysboro under General Forest. Subsequently they returned to Georgia, and
then into the Carolinas, engaging in the battle of Bentonville, and surrendering
with Johnston's army at Greensboro, North Carolina, when in the summer of 1865
the war ended. General Bourne enlisted with Company H, as stated above, as a
private and remained with the same throughout the war, having been promoted to
third sergeant of the company. General Bourne served as commander of the South
Georgia Brigade, Georgia Division, United Confederate Veterans.

   Following the general occupation of his father, General Bourne has
practically all his life been associated in one way or another with the lumber
industry in south Georgia, either as a manufacturer or as a dealer and he has
also engaged extensively in the handling of timber lands. He located in Savannah
after the war and has ever since resided here, witnessing a phenomenal half
century of growth and development and at the same time contributing to it. He is
the president of the Bourne Lumber Company, incorporated, whose manufacturing
plant is located in Liberty county on the Seaboard Air Line Railway, their
general offices being in Savannah, at 301-302 National Bank building. The
company are manufacturers and wholesale dealers in long and short leaf yellow
pine. It also owns the Bourne Brick Manufacturing Company, the plant of which is
in Chatham county.

   General Bourne was married in Savannah in the year 1869, to Miss Julia
Backley, whose demise occurred in 1906. This admirable lady bore her husband
five children, all sons, as follows: Walter L., who is secretary and treasurer
of the Bourne Lumber Company; Lescoe J., vice-president of the same; Vernon C.,
engaged in the wholesale produce business at Brunswick, Georgia; Oran Tinsley,
of the firm of 0. T. Bourne & Company (lumber manufacturers); and Frank R., who
is mill superintendent for 0. T. Bourne & Company. The name of Bourne is well
and favorably known throughout Chatham county, father and sons having proved
themselves men of exceptionally fine citizenship. General Bourne is a member of
the session of Westminster Presbyterian church.


Additional Comments:
A HISTORY OF SAVANNAH AND SOUTH GEORGIA
BY
WILLIAM HARDEN

VOLUME II
ILLUSTRATED
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK
1913

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