Theodore Weld Burdick

Theodore Weld Burdick (October 7, 1836 – July 16, 1898) was an American banker, Civil War veteran and politician who one term served as a Republican U.S. Representative from Iowa's 3rd congressional district, serving from 1877 to 1879.

Biography
Born in Evansburg, Pennsylvania, Burdick attended the common schools. He moved with his parents to Decorah, Iowa, in 1853 and at age seventeen became the community's first schoolteacher.

He was a deputy treasurer and recorder of Winneshiek County from 1854 to 1857, and the treasurer and recorder from 1858 to 1862, when he resigned to recruit a company for the Union Army in the Civil War.

Civil War
He was commissioned as captain and assigned to Company D the 6th Regiment Iowa Volunteer Cavalry. He served for three years in the Department of the Northwest, in response to uprisings in southern Minnesota and Dakota Territory by Native Americans against settlers. After the regiment was mustered out in 1865 he returned to Decorah and became cashier of the First National Bank.

Congress
In 1876, Burdick was elected as a Republican to the Forty-fifth Congress, where he served from March 4, 1877 to March 3, 1879. He served on the House Committee on Expenditures. In 1878, he declined to be a candidate for renomination.

Later career
He resumed banking at Decorah, and Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. He served as member of the Iowa Senate in 1886 and 1887.

Death and burial
He died in Decorah from July 16, 1898. He was interred in Phelps Cemetery.