Erastus Williams Burnham

What it reads like

Crew list gives birthplace South Windsor, CT, age 18^[1] Erastus W. Brunham was entered on the crew list of the whaler Hannibal (1851-1854), dated 1851-Jun-21^[2] Burnham, Erastus W. South Windsor, Jan. 5, 1864^[3] Erastus W., b. Apr. 28, 1834, m. May 15, 1855 Mary Devine^[4]

1. [1] American Offshore Whaling Crew Lists, https://whalinghistory.org, New Bedford Whaling Museum, Nantucket Historical Association, and Mystic Seaport Museum, Inc. (CC BY 4.0), crew entry AE061341029, Hannibal : 1851-1854, list dated 1851-Jun-21. · documented
2. [2] American Offshore Whaling Crew Lists, https://whalinghistory.org, New Bedford Whaling Museum, Nantucket Historical Association, and Mystic Seaport Museum, Inc. (CC BY 4.0), crew entry AE061341029, Hannibal : 1851-1854, list dated 1851-Jun-21. · documented
3. [3] Connecticut. Adjutant-General's Office. Catalogue of Connecticut volunteer organizations : (infantry, cavalry, and artillery,) in the service of the United States, 1861-1865, with additional enlistments, casualties, &c., &c., and brief summaries, showing the operations and service of the several regiments and batteries. Hartford : Brown & Gross, 1869. Internet Archive, connecticutvolorg00catarich, https://archive.org/details/connecticutvolorg00catarich. · documented
4. [4] Burnham, Roderick H. (Roderick Henry). Genealogical records of Thomas Burnham, the emigrant : who was among the early settlers at Hartford, Connecticut, U.S. America, and his descendants, vol. v.1. Hartford, Connecticut : Case, Lockwood & Brainard Co. Print, 1884. Internet Archive, genealogicalreco01burn, https://archive.org/details/genealogicalreco01burn. · documented

Every paragraph is footnoted, and the one line that came from your family is labelled as such. Nothing is invented — no imagined letters, no "he must have been frightened." A sentence that cannot point at a source does not get written.