The Ponkapaug are a group of Massachusetts Native people whose historical territory lies in the Blue Hills of Massachusetts. Their winter home was the village of Ponkapaug ("a spring that bubbles from red soil") and in the summer they lived around the mouth of the Neponset River. After European settlement, English authorities established the Ponkapaug Plantation as an Indian Praying Town in 1654.
Lemuel Burr was the son of Sally Burr (Laughing Flood) and the grandson of Seymour Burr of Canton, Massachusetts. His obituary indicates that his father was mixed-race, Native. He married Mary Davis and had several children: Annie E., Lemuel D., Mary, and Sarah. The family lived in Boston, where Burr opened a hairdressing and shaving room on Court Street. He also worked as a carpet layer.
James Burr was the son of James Burr, a Ponkapog, and Sally Turner. After the death of his father, James resided in Boston with his mother and, as an invalid, relied on State support. Letter, August 22, 1859. John Milton Earle Papers, American Antiquarian Society.
Isaac Williams was the son of Isaac Williams and Elizabeth Will, members of the Ponkapog community in Canton, Massachusetts. In 1845 he was living in Stoughton and requested State assistance of fifty dollars per year. Five years later, he was living in a household with William Hanson, aged 52, a Black laborer from South Carolina. Ten years later, he resided in Cabridgeport as a laborer with his wife, Julia, and young infant in a neighborhood with other Ponkapog -- his sister,