John Bush (c1726-1757) was an African American soldier who fought in the Massachusetts colonial militia during King George’s War (1744-1748) and the French and Indian War (1754-1763.)
John Bush is best remembered today as one of the most talented and artistic powder horn carvers of the era. While even a plain, blank cow’s horn helped keep a soldier’s gun powder dry and ready for use when firing a flintlock musket, carved powder horns helped their owners to tell them apart from other horns. A uniquely original American art form, engraved powder horns typically included the owner’s name, confirming ownership and serving as a possible form of identification for those who fell in battle. Engraving a horn with a pen knife or other tool took skill and artistic ability. John Bush was one of those men to whom fellow soldiers turned when they wanted to personalize their powder horn. Bush's surviving creations are celebrated for their flowing floral patterns, embellishments, and his distinctive, beautifully executed calligraphy.
The Bushes were a free, literate, and landowning African American family in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts (not to be confused with another family in town by the same name). Born in about 1726, John was the fourth child of George (c1687-1767) and Priscilla Bush (n.d.-c1763). A 19th-century town history remembered John’s parents as having originally come from South America. Andrew Henshaw Ward, History of the town of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, from its settlement in 1717 to 1829 (Boston: S.G. Drake, 1847), 243.) There is no known record that either George or Priscilla were ever enslaved. The Bush family was living in Shrewsbury at least by 1730/1; the couple remained in town and became landowners. (Charles W. Thayer and Melinde Lutz Sanborn, “John Bush of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, master horn carver,” National Geographic Society quarterly 98 (2007), pp. 85–102.)
John was one of ten children: George (c1720-1759); Susannah (c1722-1793); Ruth (c1724-1765); John (c1726-1757); Joseph (c1728-1756); Hannah (c1731-1799); Lucy (born c1733); Jerusha (born c1735); Benjamin (born c1737); Sarah (born probably before 1747.) Shrewsbury Church records document John, Ruth, Susannah, Joseph, Hannah, Lucy, Jerusha, and Sarah were baptized between the ages of 13 and 16. (Church records, 1724-1841, First Congregational Church in Shrewsbury, MA, Congregational Library & Archives, Boston, MA)
John Bush was an active member of the Massachusetts provincial militia. Assigned principally to militia companies and regiments of commanded by western Massachusetts officers, Bush first appeared in a muster roll at Fort Shirley in 1747, during King George’s War (1744-1748.) Well-versed in bookkeeping, he worked between deployments as a store clerk for Colonel William Williams who ran a store and commissary in Deerfield, Massachusetts. Much Williams's surviving daybook is in John Bush's handwriting and his name appears numerous times as both a debtor and a creditor. John’s final deployment was to Fort William Henry on Lake George in 1756, where he served as company clerk, the highest paid position in the provincial militia below the rank of a commissioned officer. (David K. Goss and David Zarowin, eds., Massachusetts Officers and Soldiers in the French and Indian Wars 1755 – 1756 (Boston: The Society of Colonial Wars in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1985) p. 239.) By now an experienced veteran, Bush knew the risks of serving at this small, remote fort at the crossroads of conflict. With that in mind, he wrote his will on April, 1756:
“I John Bush of Shrewsbury in the County of Worcester Husbandman being Engaged in his majesty’s Service and going forth into the War & Knowing that it is appointed that all men once to Die do make and ordain this to be and Contain my Last Will and Testament. And in the first Place when it shall please God that Gave it and my Body to ye Earth from whence it was taken, In hopes of ye free Pardon and Remision of all my Sins and a Resurrection to Eternal Life.” John divided his estate between his father and several siblings, leaving the bulk of his property to his youngest brother Benjamin, who he also entrusted to administer the estate. (“John Bushs will negro-October 14, 1758" Worcester County, Massachusetts Court of Probate, Case #9402.)
John Bush’s deployment to Fort William Henry indeed proved tragic, as it placed him there during the siege and surrender of the Fort to French troops under the Marquis de Montcalm and their Indigenous allies in August, 1757. Bush survived the massacre of part of the garrison but was taken to Quebec as a prisoner of war. When a rumor reached John’s father that his son had been captured and might be in French Canada, George Bush wrote to the Governor of Massachusetts, pleading that his son be included in any exchange of prisoners:
“Honrd Sir I have a Son In Captivity at Canaday if he be living that was Taken Last year at Lake George…his Name is John Bush a mulatto Fellow about 30 years of Age, pray Sir if there be any opportunity to Exchange Captives let my son be Remembered.”
Sadly, John Bush was already dead. A fellow survivor of Fort William Henry named John among prisoners of war who had died on a ship en route to France. All three of George and Priscilla Bush’s sons who served died in the French and Indian War. John’s brother, Joseph, had died at Crown Point, New York, in 1756. Their oldest child, George, would die two years after John, in 1759. (Thayer and Sanborn, “John Bush of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, master horn carver”, p. 99.)