Middletown Sea Captain’s Grave Found in South America

The graves of two Connecticut sea captains — including one from Middletown — have turned up in equatorial Suriname, a former Dutch sugar colony on the northern coast of South America.

According to an article appearing in the Hartford Courant, a headstone belonging to Capt. Michael Burnham of Middletown, who died in 1758, was located recently by researchers in an old Dutch cemetery in the city of Paramaribo, Suriname’s capital city. Burnham, the article says, was an adventurer who made a fortune as a privateer and may also have trafficked in slaves. He owned an inn and tavern on lower Washington Street near the Connecticut River.

Burnham’s headstone, of somber Portland brownstone, was found alongside the graves of New London’s Capt. William Barbut, and Rhode Island merchants, Capt. Nathaniel Angel and Capt. William Gardner Wanton. The find was communicated to the by the American embassy in Paramaribo.