Edwin Otway Burnham

Rev Edwin Otway Burnham (September 24, 1824 – August 1, 1873), born in Ghent, Kentucky. A congregational minister, he graduated Hamilton College, New York, in 1852 and was a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity. On July 18, 1852 he was ordained, after having been stated supply at Columbus City, Iowa and he became a student at Union Theological Seminary in Madison, New York (1852-55). He was a teacher in Pennington, New Jersey (1855-56) and in Wilton, Minnesota (1856-57). At Tivoli, Minnesota, an Indian Reservation, he preached and served as a missionary and also served as stated supply (1861-71). He was a key figure in the defense of New Ulm, Minnesota, helping to prevent the town from total destruction as it was attached by Taoyateduta (Little Crow) and his Sioux warriors in the Dakota War of 1862.^[1] His failing health compelled him to give up the ministry, and from 1871 to 1873 he was an invalid living in California. He died of consumption in Los Angeles, California.^[2]

Burnham was a descendant of Thomas Burnham (1617–1688) of Hartford, Connecticut, the first American ancestor of a large number of Burnhams.^[3] His father was Dr. Frederick Burnham (1787 - ca. March 31, 1829) of East Hartford, Connecticut ^[4] and his mother was Harriet (Woolridge) Burnham. On July 3, 1860, he married Rebecca (Elizabeth) Russell Burnham (July 12, 1842 - 1905) of Westminster, Middlesex, England in Sterling Township, Blue Earth, Minnesota.^[5] The family had three sons and one daughter, all born in Minnesota:

Frederick Russell Burnham (May 11, 1861 – September 1, 1947), the eldest son, became a highly decorated Major in the British Army, scouting in Africa and the United States, and the father of the international Scouting movement.
Edward Burnham (November 29, 1863 – September 4, 1866)
Mary Maylin Burnham (November 7, 1867, date of death unknown), went by the name Kitty. Moved to England.
Howard Burnham (May 27, 1870 – 1917), moved to Africa with his brother Fred, he was the chief chemist for a mine in Johannesburg, South Africa. With Fred, he left Africa in 1897 and moved permanently to England.

[edit] References

^ Burnham, Frederick Russell (1926). Scouting on Two Continents. Doubleday, Page and Co, 2. ASIN B000F1UKOA.
^ Auburn, Willis J. (1883). General Catalogue of the Auburn Theological Seminary.
^ Bradford, Mary E; Richard H Bradford (1919). An American family on the African frontier: the Burnham family letters, 1893–1896. Niwot, Colorado: Roberts Rinehart Publishers. ISBN 1879373661.
^ "Death Notice" (March 31, 1829). Connecticut Courant LXV (3349): 3.
^ Dodge, Melvin Gilbert (1902). The Delta Upsilon Decennial Catalogue. Ann Arbor, MI: Richmond & Backus, Co.

Delta Upsilon Decennial Catalogue, edited by Melivin Gibert Dodge (1903)
Genealogical records of Thomas Burnham : the emigrant, who was among the early settlers at Hartford, Connecticut U.S., by Roderick Henry Burnham (1884)
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)

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