Andrew Burns

Rev. Andrew Burns, father of Hon. Andrew M. Burns, was born in Berks county, near Reading, Pennsylvania, in the year 1813, July 24th, and is of Scotcb-Irish extraction. While still a small lad, in 1820, he emigrated with his father's family to Richland county, Ohio, then a wilderness. With limited means originally for obtaining an education, he has been throuhout his life a close and tireless student, and now, at the age of sixty-two years, is a profound scholar, a man of valuable and varied literary and general knowledge, and one of the ablest preachers of the Disciple Church. In 1856 and 1857 he served as a member of the Ohio House of Representatives, from Richland county, the only Republican ever elected to the House from this county. He was one of the first three Absolitionists of his county, and from the earliest days of the antislavery cause was one of its most ardent and fearless supporters. He has always taken an active part in the political movements of the day, and is widely recognized as a valuable ally by those to whom he offers the assistance of his sterling abilities. From the fall of 1861 to the spring of 1863 he served in the United States army as Chaplain of the 65th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, commanded by Colonel Harker, who fell at Kenesaw Mountain, in the division commanded by General Wood. Colonel Harker was a Brigadier-General when he fell. Mr. Burns has probably held more public debates on religious topics than any other living preacher in the West, and to the support of his views and arguments brings a formidable store of natural talents and masses of knowledge bearing directly and heavily upon the points held under consideration. He has preached for forty years, and travelled and preached in twenty-four States of the Union. He now resides at Chagrine Falls, Cuyahoga county, Ohio.

Source: The Biographical Encyclopaedia of Ohio of the Nineteenth Century, Cincinnati: Galaxy Publishing Company, 1876, p. 72.