COLBURN, PAUL, was born about 1761, in Hollis, Hillsboro county, New Hampshire. He was married in Massachusetts, to Mehetibel Ball, who was born about 1757. They had eleven children born in Sterling, Worcester county, Mass. In 1809 the family moved to the vicinity of Hebron, Grafton county, N. H., where they remained until Sept., 1815, when Paul Colburn and his wife, his son Isaac with his wife and two children, his son William and his wife, they having been married but a few days, and his unmarried daughter, Isabel, started from Hebron in wagons to seek a new home in Ohio, at that time the "far west." On reaching Olean, at the Alleghany river, they found the river too low to bring all their goods on boats, as they had intended. They sold their wagons and teams, put their remaining goods and their families on a raft, and started down the river, reaching Pittsburg on the evening of Dec. 24, 1815. Ice was forming in the river, and they were compelled to stop there for the winter. While they were in Pittsburg, Paul Colburn was joined by his son Ebenezer, who had been serving in the United States army in the war with England, then just ended. In the spring of 1816, Isaac and Ebenezer went up the Alleghany river and made a raft of logs suitable for making shingles, and partially loaded it with hoop poles. They expected to have gone down the Ohio river in June, but the whole season was one of unusual low water, and December arrived before they reached Pittsburg with their raft. The whole party went down on the raft to Marietta, O., where they engaged in farming and other pursuits. Ebenezer was married in Marietta, and in the spring of 1820 Paul Colburn and his wife, Isaac and his family, and Ebenezer and his wife, embarked on a raft, leaving William to close up the business at Marietta. They landed their raft at Louisville, Ky., and left Isaac there to work up and sell their lumber. The other members of the family continued down the river to Shawneetown; Paul Colburn, his wife and daughter remained there. Ebenezer and his wife went on to join some relatives of her's in Monroe county, Ill., about fifty miles south of St. Louis.

In August of that year Isaac Colburn and his wife died at Louisville within two days of each other, leaving six children among strangers, and on the first of November Mrs. Mehitibel Colburn died at Shawneetown. About the time of her death William Colburn embarked with his family on a boat at Marietta, floated down to Louisville, and took on board four of his brother Isaac's children, one having died, and another been placed in a good home. He then went to Shawneetown and joined his bereaved father and sister, arriving Dec. 24, 1820.

In March, 1821, Paul Colburn, his daughter Isabel, William Colburn, wife and three children, the four orphan children of Isaac Colburn, and a Mr. Harris, started in a wagon drawn by four oxen for Morgan county. They traveled through rain, mud and unbridged streams for about five weeks, which brought them to the south side of Lick creek, on what is now Loami township, where they found an empty cabin. From sheer weariness they decided to stop, and Mr. Harris, the owner of the wagon and oxen, went on to Morgan county.

Soon after their arrival Wm. Colburn gave a rifle gun for a crop of corn just planted, and in that way began to provide food. He secured a team and went after his brother Ebenezer, and brought him and his wife to the settlement, arriving in October, 1821.

Having succeeded in bringing so many of his descendants to the new country, and witnessed their struggles to gain a foothold and provide themselves with homes, Paul Colburn died Feb. 27, 1825, near the present town of Loami. Of his children who came to Sangamon county, we will notice each under separate heads, beginning with the daughters--