Harry H. Burleson

HARRY H. BURLESON, one of the leading young farmers of Plainfield township, is a native of Kent county, Mich., was born June 25, I868, the youngest of the family of six children born to Stephen and Minerva (Billings) Burleson, in the following order: Jane, the wife of Frank Sprague, a farmer of Iowa; Tina, married to Dell Brayford, a farmer of Grand Rapids township, Mich.; May, now Mrs. Frank Wilson, of Huntspur, Mich.; Pearl, wife of Dan Angel, a farmer of Plainfield township; Stephen, a resident of San Jose. Cal., and Harry H., the subject of this memoir. Stephen Burleson, the father of this family, is a native of Canada, was born September 15, I831, and was brought to Michigan about the year I837 by his parents, who settled in Genesee county, where Stephen was reared to manhood and where he lived about seventeen years. He then purchased a tract of eighty acres in a dense forest in Plainfield township, Kent county, on which there was not a clear space large enough to erect a respectable shanty, but this forest he succeeded in clearing off, and converted the tract into a profitable and luxuriant farm, on which he made his home until November I, I898, when he went to Iowa, and later to California, where he expects to remain. Mrs. Minerva Burleson was born in Pittsburg, Pa., about the year 1827, and died in Plainfield township, Kent county, Mich., February I9, I891, her mortal remains now resting in Livingston cemetery. Harry H. Burleson, at the age of twenty one years, fell heir to the old homestead in Plainfield township, and this farm he has since improved and cultivated to its fullest capacity. February 22, 1895, he married. Mrs. Agnes Bridges, a native of Wabash county, Ind., born March 27, I863, and the eldest child of John and Julia (Holland) Egan, both natives of the Hoosier state. John Egan was born in I841, came to Michigan about I871, and died in Grand Rapids in October, I88I; Mrs. Julia Egan was born in 1845, and is still a resident of Grand Rapids. Mrs. Burleson was first married, at twenty one years of age, to Daniel Bridges, at Minneapolis, Minn;. he died March I5, t893. She has one child, Walter Bridges, a lad of twelve years. Politically, Mr. Burleson is non-partisan, and votes as best suits his judgment. Fraternally, he is a member of the Court of Honor at Rockford, and while in religion he is as independent as in politics, his wife is a devout member of St. James' Catholic church, Grand Rapids. Socially, Mr. and Mrs. Burleson stand high, and enjoy the unfeigned respect of all their neighbors.