| Richard Quandt Bourn, Sr, age 95 of Old Saybrook, Connecticut died on April 11, 2013. Richard was born in Hartford, Connecticut on September 28, 1917 to the late Kenneth and Elizabeth (Quandt) Bourn.
In addition to his parents, Richard was predeceased by his wife of 56 years, Florence Eugena (Parks) Bourn, sister of the late “Slate King”, Cameron Parks. While growing up he raised pigeons. His interest in flight required him to walk 10 miles to the nearby Pratt & Whitney airfield to watch the latest aircraft of the 1930s. He made model airplanes, learning his way around a sailboat and
began collecting Indian artifacts as he passed through farm fields on his way to the airfield. At the age of 17, he lost his right hand in an industrial accident. He returned to Hartford Public High School and was class president when he graduated in 1935.
In 1939, he graduated from Tri-State College in Angola, Indiana, with a degree in Engineering. While in college he met his future wife, Florence Parks, and they married in February 1940. After college he became employed, as an engineer with Pratt & Whitney of East Hartford, Ct., working there until his retirement in 1974. Sailing became a lifelong passion of his. He taught others how to sail and helped deliver boats up and down the east coast of the US and once to the Virgin Islands via Bermuda.
In the 1950’s his interest in collecting Indian artifacts was reawakened when he began finding projectile points in the housing development he had moved to in Glastonbury, Connecticut. He eventually
recovered 499 cache blades, known as the Smith Brook Cache, pictured in Who’s Who in Indian Relics Volume 8, on page 17. He is also listed Volume 3 of Who’s Who in the Roster section on page 369.
His sons accompanied him on many of his surface hunts for artifacts in the tobacco fields of the Connecticut River Valley and to the Crib Mound of Indiana. He became interested in Paleo points and found a few, surface hunting, in the western (Colorado) and central states of Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio. He eventually decided that he would need to start buying what he wished to collect, as he would not live long enough to find everything he wanted!
He found a visual beauty in the shape of the projectile points, in the shape of the sailboat hulls and their sails, and the jet turbine blades that he developed as an engineer. He became interested in birdstones and slate from his brother-inlaws, Cameron Parks “The Slate King” and Rector Parks of Spencer, Indiana. Over the years he spend a lot of time with Cameron and upon Cameron’s death he was asked to evaluate the collection for the family. His wife Florence inheritated one fifth of the huge collection of slate and flint. Richard visited Earl Townsend several times as well as other collectors when traveling west.
In the 1960s and 1970s he gave public lectures on the “Clovis First” theory, and slide shows on the artifacts he had found in New England.
He was a member of the Archaeological Society of Connecticut and had photos of his and his wife’s birdstones published in CSAJ in the years 1984-1988.
Richard lived most of his life in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. and was a member of the Congregational Church. He is survived by his daughter Carolyn Armstrong, his son’s Richard Q. Bourn, Jr, Edson Bourn, Cameron Bourn and wife Susan. Grandchildren Tyler & wife Kathryn Bourn, Chelsea Bourn and Matthew Bourn.
Submitted by Edson Bourn
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