BURRUS, GEORGE M., a merchant of Bluffs, Scott County, Ill., recently a farmer of Morgan County, was born in the neighborhood of Meredosia, December 18, 1862, the son of George W. and Eliza A. (Masterson) Burrus, both natives of Morgan County. The father, George W. Burrus, was born in 1827, his father, also named George W., having migrated from Tennessee in pioneer days and settled on a farm near Meredosia. The forefathers of Mr. Burrus, for several generations, were farmers.

George M. Burrus assisted in the cultivation of his father's farm, attended the district school, and thus developed toward manhood. Later he entered Illinois college at Jacksonville, from which he graduated in the class of 1885, after which he taught in various parts of the county for fifteen years, during 1892 and 1893 being Principal of the Meredosia High School. During Governor Altgeld's administration he held the position of Chief Clerk of the Central Hospital for the Insane at Jacksonville. On the death of his widowed mother, which occurred March 4, 1894, he returned to the farm, which had reverted to him and his brother, John H., and which he conducted until 1904. In 1900 he had established a mercantile business in Bluffs, and in 1904 moved permanently to that place, in order to give his entire attention to it. He resides in a pleasant home and enjoys a profitable business.

Mr. Burrus was married, on September 16, 1886, to Julia F. Reyland, daughter of E.E.L. Reyland, a native of Germany and an early settler of Illinois, and he and his wife have one daughter named Inez. Their only son, Frederick, died in infancy. In politics Mr. Burrus is a Democrat.