User talk:Ctatkinson/Sandbox/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 student at Union Theological Seminary in Madison, New York for three years, and was dismissed from Auburn on December 21, 1852. From 1855 to 1856, he was a teacher at Pennington, New Jersey. In 1858 he was ordained, after having been stated supply at Columbus City, Iowa, in 1856, and at Wilton, Minnesota in 1857. At Tivoli, Minnesota, an Indian Reservation, he preached and served as a missionary and also served as stated supply. 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. His failing health compelled him to give up the ministry, and from 1871 to 1873 he was an invalid in California. He died of consumption in Los Angeles, California.

Burnham was a decendent of Thomas Burnham (1617 - 1688) of Hartford, Connecticut, the first American ancestor of a large number of Burnhams. On July 3, 1860, he married Rebecca (Elizabeth) Russell Burnham in Sterling, Minnesota. The family had 3 sons and 1 daughter. Their son, Frederick Russell Burnham (1861 - 1947), became a highly decordated Major in the British Army, scouting in Africa and the United States, and the father of the international Scouting movement.