Edwin Otway Burnham
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Rev Edwin Otway Burnham (September 24, 1824 – August 1, 1873) was a
Congregational Congregational churches (also Congregationalist churches or Congregationalism) are Protestant churches in the Calvinist tradition practising congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its ...
minister and
missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...
. He was born in
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, his father died when he was 5 and his mother died the following year. He and his younger sister, Caroline, moved to
Madison, New York Madison is a town in Madison County, New York, United States. The population was 3,008 at the 2010 census. The Town of Madison contains a village also named Madison. The town is near the eastern border of the county. History Settlement be ...
to live with their grandfather Abner Burnham, a soldier of the
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, but Abner died soon thereafter. Burnham graduated
Hamilton College Hamilton College is a private liberal arts college in Clinton, Oneida County, New York. It was founded as Hamilton-Oneida Academy in 1793 and was chartered as Hamilton College in 1812 in honor of inaugural trustee Alexander Hamilton, following ...
,
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, in 1852 and was a member of the
Delta Upsilon Delta Upsilon (), commonly known as DU, is a collegiate men's fraternity founded on November 4, 1834 at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It is the sixth-oldest, all-male, college Greek Letter Organizations#Greek letters, Greek-let ...
fraternity. On July 18, 1852 he was ordained, after having been stated supply at
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and he became a student at Union Theological Seminary in New York (1852–55). He graduated in 1855 and was licensed as a preacher of the gospel. He was a teacher in
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(1855–56), and a Pastor of Congressional Church in
Wilton, Minnesota Wilton is a city in Beltrami County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 204 at the 2010 census. Wilton is considered a bedroom community of Bemidji. Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area ...
(1859–61). At Tivoli, Minnesota, an
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, he preached and served as a missionary and also served as stated supply (1861–71). An exceptional marksman with a Kentucky long rifle, Burnham could consistently split in two a soft lead slug placed on an axe head from 100 and 200 yards. To most he was known as, "a Kentucky frontiersman and rifle shooting parson who could bark a squirrel, swing an axe or dispense Gospel with equal ferver and efficiency." Burnham was a key figure in the defense of
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, helping to prevent the town from total destruction as it was attacked by
Taoyateduta Little Crow III (Dakota language, Dakota: ''Thaóyate Dúta''; 1810 – July 3, 1863) was a Mdewakanton, Mdewakanton Dakota chief who led a faction of the Dakota people, Dakota in a Dakota War of 1862, five-week war against the United States in ...
(Little Crow) and his
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warriors in the
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. While he was in
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procuring lead and powder, his wife Rebecca (Elizabeth) Russell Burnham was left alone in the cabin with Fred, the couple's not quite two-year-old boy. While brushing her hair, she froze at the flashing glimpse of war paint and war bonnets moving through the forest. Gathering up baby Fred, she realized she could not escape while carrying him, so she hid her baby in a stack of green corn shocks, running fast and deceptively to evade the Sioux war party. She reached a friendly homestead six miles away in time to see the smoke of her cabin. Returning the next morning with armed neighbors, Rebecca saw her burned-down cabin and she found her baby Fred still in the corn husks and still alive. Sometime after the Sioux hostilities had ended, Burnham sustained major injuries which led to his early death. He was carrying the logs from the ruins of his former cabin to build a barn when he slipped on an ice patch. As he fell, the log he was carrying crushed his chest resulting in compound rib fractures and the puncturing of one of his lungs. His failing health compelled him to give up the ministry, and in 1870 he moved his family to California—then a two-week trip by rail through still visible buffalo herds. From 1871 to 1873 he was an invalid. He died of consumption (tuberculosis) in
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. With the passing of Edwin, Rebecca and her two surviving children, Fred, then 11, and Howard, then 3, were left destitute. An uncle in
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offered the family a home, but there was no money for the return journey. A family friend in Los Angeles, Mrs. Porter, lent Rebecca $125 for the trip; however, Fred steadfastly refused to leave, determined to find a job to provide his family some support and to repay Mrs. Porter, so Rebecca boarded the train with only baby Howard. Fred was an outstanding horse rider, and he knew the environs around Los Angeles, so he landed a job as a mounted messenger with
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. Even at this young age, Fred had already learned
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from his frontiersman father. By the time he was 12, Fred was an expert with rifle or shotgun, hunting deer in Los Angeles, and at 13 he bought a Winchester model 1873 carbine, caliber .44-40. By 14, he had repaid his mother's debt to Mrs. Porter and he left California to live with his mother, brother, and uncle in Iowa.


Family

Burnham was a descendant of
Thomas Burnham Thomas Burnham (1617 – June 24, 1688) was a lawyer and colonist, who was born in England and migrated to the American Colonies sometime prior to 1645. He lived most of his adult live in Connecticut where he was a lawyer and a landowner. He was ...
(1617–1688) of
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, the first American ancestor of a large number of Burnhams. His father was Dr. Frederick Burnham (November 16, 1787 – ca. March 31, 1829) of
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, a soldier invalided in the
War of 1812 The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It bega ...
who went south to Kentucky to practice medicine, and his mother was Harriet (Woolridge) Burnham (April 14, 1794 – April 23, 1830). On July 3, 1860, he married Rebecca (Elizabeth) Russell Burnham lapp(July 12, 1842 – 1905) of
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,
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,
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in Sterling Township,
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. The family had three sons and one daughter, all born in Minnesota: *
Frederick Russell Burnham Frederick Russell Burnham DSO (May 11, 1861 – September 1, 1947) was an American scout and world-traveling adventurer. He is known for his service to the British South Africa Company and to the British Army in colonial Africa, and for teach ...
(May 11, 1861 – September 1, 1947), the eldest son, became a highly decorated Major in the
British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...
, scouting in Africa and the United States, and the father of the international Scouting movement. * Edward Russell Burnham (November 29, 1863 – September 4, 1866) * Mary Maylin Burnham (November 7, 1867, July 14, 1868) * Matther Howard Burnham (May 27, 1870 – 1918), moved to Africa with his brother Fred, he was the chief chemist for a mine in
Johannesburg, South Africa Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...
. During
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
worked behind enemy lines in southwest Germany as spy for France.


References

* ''Delta Upsilon Decennial Catalogue'', edited by Melivin Gibert Dodge (1903) * ''Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature'', by John McClintock (1889) * ''General Catalogue of Union Theological Seminary in the City of New-York'', by Edwin Francis Hatfield (1876) * ''A brief history of the Tivoli, Minnesota, settlers'', by Josiah Glen Neal and Edwina Neal Bergman (1969) * ''Smith-Russell Family History'', by Vida M. Reese (1944) {{DEFAULTSORT:Burnham, Edwin Otway 1824 births 1874 deaths American Congregationalist ministers People from Carroll County, Kentucky Hamilton College (New York) alumni Union Theological Seminary (New York City) alumni People from Madison, New York 19th-century American clergy