Born: Western New York, 1829.
Died: Carrollton, Illinois, 1882.
Was brought by his widowed mother to Illinois in 1830. The first home was near Springfield. He was almost entirely a self-educated man. At the age of twenty he taught a school at Vandalia In 1850 he went to Winchester and in 1856 was admitted to the bar. He served two terms in the Legislature and was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1862.
In 1868 he moved to Carrollton, where he resided till the close of his life. He was a member of the fortieth and forty-first Congresses. In 1877 he was elected circuit judge, and served in this position till the day of his final victory. As a jurist, Mr. Burr was eminent and had few equals. His analyses of intricate questions were clear and explicit and his decisions satisfactory. As an orator he was well-nigh perfect. In his early years he entered the Christian Church, and to the close of his life he was not only a member, but a support and an inspiration. When there was no other one present in the Lord's Day meetings to preach, he proclaimed the unsearchable riches.
While he filled high positions and was the peer of any man, he was not in the least ostentatious or distant. He had a genuine affection for and was intimately associated with the common people. As man and jurist he made it the rule of his life to do justly and love mercy. He frequently expressed himself in verse. The following was written by him about 1852:
Though waves may swell and billows rise,
And threatening clouds hang o'er the skies,
O'er me and mine--
Though driven on where breakers roar,
And ragged rocks surround the shore,
I'll not repine.
Though riding on the maddened wave,
To time and circumstance a slave,
I'll bear my lot;
I'll raise aloft religion's sail,
And strive to ride throughout the gale,
And falter not.
Though friends upon the sea of life
Are from my bosom torn in strife,
And by the swell
Of ocean wave, borne from my side,
I'll bid them with a stoic's pride
A long farewell.
Though all desert me in the gloom
And leave me o'er life's sea to roam
Without one friend,
Still I will always onward keep,
Triumphant o'er the raging deep,
Till life shall end.