Part of the Indiana Biographies Project
Andrew Burgess
Andrew Burgess, of Wayne township, Wayne county, Indiana, was born in the house in which he now resides, April 10, 1833. His parents were Samuel and Elizabeth Burgess. His mother was a daughter of William Bulla. Samuel Burgess was born in Guilford county, North Carolina, January 10, 1795, and came to Indiana about the year 1815 with his father, John Burgess, who entered the tract of land now owned by the family, but lived on an adjoining tract across the river. John Burgess died at the age of fifty-two years, before the birth of our subject. He had four sons—Samuel, Jonathan, Daniel and Abner, and five daughters, all dead except Rebecca Griffin, youngest daughter; and she is quite aged. Daniel left two children: Jennie, who died at the age of twenty-three years, unmarried, and Emma, the wife of Jesse Burgess, her cousin. Jonathan died at Green's Fork at the age of seventy years, unmarried. Samuel had made great improvements on the farm before his marriage, hewing poplar logs with which he constructed the house some seventy-five years ago. He died in 1836, at the age of forty-one years. His wife, Elizabeth Bulla, was born on February 27, 1800, and died in 1858, twenty years after her husband. Their marriage was contracted in this state and a family of nine children were born to them, viz.: Melinda, the wife of Oliver Barber, living in Kansas; Anna, who became the wife of John Park Voss and died at the age of fifty-four years; John, who spent the greater part of his life on the old homestead and died at the age of sixty-eight years; Mary Jane, who married Ephraim Overman and died in Kansas, at the age of fifty years; Eliza, who is the widow of William Sinex and resides in Richmond; William Bulla, who is a farmer at Hagerstown; Daniel Milton, who also is a farmer at the same place; Jesse, who resides on part of the old homestead; and Andrew, our subject, who is the youngest of the family. After the death of her husband, Mrs. Burgess continued on the farm, reared her family and saw them all settled in homes of their own. John, her eldest son, was but sixteen years old when his father died, but with his help she ran the farm in a highly creditable manner. This property was not divided until after her death. She was an earnest Christian woman and active worker in the Methodist church.
Andrew Burgess was but three years old at the time of his father's death. He attained the years of manhood on the farm, and as the older sons grew up and settled in homes of their own, upon him and his brother Jesse devolved the management of the place for some years prior to the death of their mother. The farm then was divided among the children, our subject receiving as his portion the house with thirty-three acres of ground. He joined hand and heart with Miss Margaret Sulser on April 21, 1858. She was a daughter of Harrison and Mary (Sanderson) Sulser, of Wayne township. In addition to his farm labors he also did considerable carpenter work. He grew large quantities of sorghum cane and was one of the first in this section to manufacture it into syrup. He has been engaged in this work for the past thirty-five years and has made as much as four thousand gallons in a single season. In later years he has turned his attention to raising strawberries, which he finds to be a profitable crop. In 1880, after almost twenty-two years of life together, his wife passed to that better land, leaving him the following family: Mattie, wife of Frank Lough, of Richmond; Ida, a teacher in Logansport, for six years in the schools at Richmond; and Oliver A., who lives at home and helps with the farm. September 1, 1882, he was married to Mrs. Essie Belsham, widow of Arthur Belsham, a bookkeeper. She is a daughter of William and Catherine (Reynolds) Pagan, and was born in 1850, in Williamsburg, Wayne county, Indiana, to which place her parents had moved from New Jersey a few years before. While she was an infant they located in Richmond and her father kept the national toll gate on the road west of the city. He was in charge of this until his death, nearly thirty years afterward, at the age of eighty-one years. Mr. and Mrs. Burgess have one child, Howard, who is a student in the high school. Mrs. Burgess had two children by her first marriage: Alden, who was a machinist and made his home with our subject until his death at the age of twenty-one years; and Bertha, who died in infancy. Mr. Burgess is a Republican in his pohtical affiliations and is a man who is highly esteemed in the community for his honorable, upright life.
Source:
Biographical and Genealogical History of Wayne, Fayette, Union and Franklin Counties, Indiana, Volume 1, The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, 1899