OLIVER
HENRY BURDETT, among the most substantial farmers and honored
citizens of Lake township, Mercer county, has a warm place in the hearts
of his old-time neighbors as a brave soldier of the Civil war. Born on the
16th of December, 1846, on the old homestead in Lackawannock township,
which was also the birthplace of his mother, he is a son of Oliver
and Abijah Ann (Sewell) Burdett. Mrs.
Abijah Burdett died in Jackson, Iowa December 15, 1853, where she
had been living but a few months.
For generations,
various members of the Sewell family have been noted for their patriotic
and military fervor. Clement Sewell, the
grandfather of Mrs. Burdett, was a soldier of the Revolutionary war and
lost a limb in the service. Her father, Clement
Sewell, Jr. was a Virginian, born and reared near Falls Church, who
joined the regular army of the United States and served in the war of 1812
as a first lieutenant of Company F, Thirty-sixth Regiment, U.S.A. He was
also a nephew of Colonel Carbrie, his
colonel, who served with such distinction in America’s second conflict
with England. As Clement Sewell, Jr., became
a resident of Mercer county in 1819, he may certainly rank with its
pioneers, he had ten children, namely: Ellen,
Johanna, Mathew, Conden, Abijah Ann, Oliver H., Clement S., Rhoda Jane,
Mary Etta, and Noah Amos. The
youngest, who served in the One Hundredth Pennsylvania Regiment of
Volunteers, known as Roundheads, in the war of the Rebellion, was wounded
in 1862 in a charge on James Island, South Carolina, and again on June 2,
1864, in the battle of Cold Harbor, Virginia, being shot in the right
breast, the ball following the marrow of the right arm to the elbow,
necessitating an amputation of the arm at the shoulder joint. He lived
until 1904, when he died of pneumonia.
Oliver
Burdett, the father of Oliver H., was
a native of Northampton, England, and at the age of nineteen came to the
United States and at once located in Mercer county, but before he settled
permanently to farming made two trips, to New Orleans on coal barges and
served in the Civil war as a member of the Fifty-fifth Regiment of
Pennsylvania Volunteers. By his marriage to Miss
Abijah A. Sewell he became the father of John
Clement, Oliver Henry (of this sketch), William
Singrey, Mary Ellen, Sarah Ann, and Amos, who died in infancy.
William S. Burdett, mentioned above, was twice married—first, to
Martha Shaffer, deceased, who left two sons and two daughters, the
second child (a daughter) being also dead. Mr. Burdett married as his
second wife Edith Stiner, and seven children
were born of this union. Mary Ellen, the
oldest daughter of Mr. Burdett's first family, married Alexander
Johnston, of Worth township, Mercer county, and they became the
parents of five sons and five daughters, of whom one son and four
daughters and the father are still living, all residents of Florence,
Colorado. Sarah Ann, now Mrs.
Arch Marshall, of Worth township, has been twice married, her first
husband being Robert Lyons, of Lake township,
who died leaving her with three boys and five girls, one of whom is
deceased.
Oliver
Burdett’s second marriage was to Mrs. Mary
(Huson) Key, the widow of Samuel Key,
and the four children born to them were as follows : Emma
May, who married William North, a
merchant of North’s Mills, this county, and they have one daughter; Charles
Elmer, a merchant of Stoneboro, who married Elizabeth
West; Frank Lesley, a farmer of Worth
township, who married Ellen Osborne and is
the father of four children; and Lester Herman,
a farmer of Jackson township, who by his marriage to Susan
Smith became the father of four sons and a daughter. Oliver
Burdett, the father of these families, which have, added so much to
the good manhood and womanhood of Mercer county, died April 10, 1876, in
his fifty-fourth year. Although a stanch Republican. popular and honored,
the deceased had no Political or public ambitions. His religious faith was
that of Presbyterianism.
Oliver
Henry Burdett, of this biography, served faithfully on the home
farm until his Patriotic instincts drew him into the ranks of the Union
army, as a member of Company M, One Hundredth Pennsylvania Regiment of
Volunteer Infantry, known popularly as the "Roundheads;’ With his
comrades, he was a participant in the battles of the Wilderness,
Spottsvlvania Court House, North Anna River, Cold Harbor, Bethesda Church,
Weldon Road, Yellow Tavern, Poplar Grove Church, Hatcher’s Run, Steadman,
and all the operations before Petersburg (including the famous mine
explosion), from the first skirmishes to the final terrible assault. Both
in the bloody action of battle as well as in wearing marches and campaign
movements, he bore his share of the dangers amid hardships of army life,
and has his reward in the enduring respect with which the faithful
veterans of the Civil war are everywhere regarded. Mr. Burdett received
his honorable discharge on the 24th of July, 1865, at Harrisburg and
returned to the Mercer county farm and has since staunchly held to his
duties as a man and a citizen of peace. He has never lost faith in his
Republican principles, and has participated to some extent in the township
government, holding at the present time the position of health officer for
Lake township; also served one term as mercantile appraiser.
On January 14,
1869, Mr. Burdett was married to Miss Sarah
Elizabeth Day, daughter of Samuel and
Parmelia (Simpson) Day, of Worth township, and to this union were
horn the following seven children : Minnie May,
who is the wife of Ernest E. McKee, of
Robinson, Illinois; Mary Amelia, wife of Edward
L. Hodge, of Lake township; Sarah Ellen,
wife of John Berrisford, of Lake township; Effie
L., wife of V. A. Montgomery, of
Spokane, Washington; Bessie O., wife of Harry
L. Shaner, now of Mill Creek township; William
Henry, who died at the age of two years : and Samuel
Oliver, who died in infancy. Samuel Day,
father of Sarah Elizabeth, was a farmer. Born
of Christian parents, he and his wife, following their example, were
lifelong members of the Presbyterian church, taking a leading part.
Twentieth
Century History of Mercer County,
1909, pages 861-863.