Jesse O. Burgess

BURGESS, PIXLER, DIBBLE

Posted By: S. Ferrall - IAGenWeb volunteer
Date: 9/8/2022 at 18:26:22

Jesse O. Burgess, one of the honored veterans of the Civil war who has lived in well earned retirement at La Porte City since 1908, was for more than four decades actively and successfully identified with agricultural pursuits in Black Hawk county.

His birth occurred in Virginia on the 3d of December, 1835, his parents being Edward and Catherine (Pixler) Burgess, the former a native of Pennsylvania and the latter of the Old Dominion.
They came to Iowa in an early day and after residing for some time in Allamakee county removed to Waterloo, Black Hawk county, the father being here engaged in agricultural pursuits. Subsequently he returned to Allamakee county, where his demise occurred in 1894, while his wife passed away in 1884.

Jesse O. Burgess was reared and educated in the state of his nativity and was a young man of about twenty-two years when in 1857 he removed with his parents to Allamakee county, Iowa.

At the time of the outbreak of the Civil war he enlisted for service with the Union army as a member of Company I, Twenty-seventh Iowa Infantry, and remained with that command for three years, holding the rank of sergeant. He participated in a number of hotly contested engagements and made a most creditable military record, never faltering in the performance of any task assigned him.

Following the period of his army service he came to Black Hawk county and here carried on general agricultural pursuits continuously and successfully until 1908, when he put aside the active work of the fields and took up his abode in La Porte City, where he purchased an attractive residence and has since made his home. He also owns one hundred and sixty acres of land in Colorado and is widely recognized as one of the substantial and esteemed citizens of his community.

On the 23d of August, 1862, Mr. Burgess was joined in wedlock to Miss Mary L. Dibble, whose parents were natives of Vermont and New York respectively and passed away in Pennsylvania. The father devoted his time and energies to farming throughout his active business career. Mr. and Mrs. Burgess became the parents of six children, namely: Reuben A.; Lura; Otto; Cora, who is deceased; James; and Charles, a barber of La Porte City.

Mr. Burgess has always exercised his right of franchise in support of the men and measures of the republican party, believing firmly in its principles. In religious faith he is a Methodist, and he still maintains pleasant relations with his old army comrades as a member of F. M. Thompson Post, G. A. R. He has now passed the seventy-ninth milestone on life's journey and enjoys the respect and veneration which should ever be accorded one who has traveled thus far on this earthly pilgrimage and whose career has been at all times upright and honorable.

~History of Black Hawk county, Iowa, and Its People; Vol II, 1915; pub. S.J. Clark publishing co.; pg 216