I had difficulty determining the identity of William Bulmer as there were several candidates alive at the time and family trees are in disagreement. The most likely candidate, in my opinion, is a William Bulmer born about 1811 who married Eunice Bliss.
The Bulmer lot was a "twin" to a lot on the east purchased in the same year by William Squire Pipes, the subject of my previous blog post. Although one or more marsh lots are mentioned in the deeds, my focus remains only on the Bulmer lot.
The boundary description of Bulmer's Lot identified his western neighbour incorrectly as Andrew Lowther rather than Andrew Ripley, my 2nd great grandfather. Andrew's parentage is unknown, and after discovering several unexplained DNA matches to the Fawcett family, I began to wonder whether Andrew was an illegitimate grandson of Henry. So the mistake in the Bulmer Lot description identifying the western neighbour as Andrew Lowther caught my interest. Henry's daughter Mary Alice Ripley married Thomas Lowther at age 27 a few years after he immigrated, and they bought the lot adjoining Andrew Ripley on the west. So perhaps the surveyor was simply confused. Or maybe he accidentally spilled the beans. It's even stranger that subsequent owners would take the trouble to correct their boundary descriptions to reflect that the starting point was actually a corner of lot 37 instead of 34 or the western boundary was 64 chains instead of 44 but not correct Andrew Lowther to Andrew Ripley.
bulmer_lot_fenwick.pdf |