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Family
Marriage: Children:
  1. James Andrew Burns: Birth: 1795 in Greene County, Georgia, USA. Death: 08 JAN 1846 in Perry County, Missouri, USA

  2. Catherine Jane Burns: Birth: 1797 in Greene County, Georgia, USA. Death: 1828 in Perry County, Missouri, USA

  3. John Burns: Birth: 1800 in Greene County, Georgia, USA.

  4. Samuel Burns: Birth: 1803 in New Madrid District, Territory of Missouri. Death: 1862 in Missouri, USA

  5. Joseph David Burns: Birth: 1805 in New Madrid District, Territory of Missouri. Death: SEP 1862 in Perry County, Missouri, USA

  6. William Burns: Birth: ABT 1809 in New Madrid District, Territory of Missouri. Death: 26 APR 1845 in probably Jackson County, Illinois

  7. Elizabeth Ann Burns: Birth: 16 DEC 1813 in Cape Girardeau District, Territory of Missouri, USA. Death: 16 JAN 1890 in Milton, Umatilla County, Oregon, USA

  8. Priscilla Burns: Birth: ABT 1816 in Cape Girardeau County, Territory of Missouri.


Family
Marriage: Children:
  1. Andrew Rowan Burns: Birth: 01 SEP 1822 in Cape Girardeau County, Missouri, USA. Death: 24 JUL 1868 in Jackson County, Illinois, USA

  2. Sarah Matilda Burns: Birth: 03 DEC 1824 in Perry County, Missouri, USA. Death: 18 APR 1913 in Doniphan, Ripley County, Missouri, USA


Notes
a. Note:   H122
Note:   Andrew, nickname Andy, Burns and his unknown second wife appear in the 1840 census in Jackson County, Illinois, and Archibald Hager 1813-1888 , a noted gunsmith in Perry County, Missouri recorded the date of death of Andrew Burns in his Diary.
  Additional proof regarding the maiden name of his wife Jane is found in the description of his family relationship as the uncle of Robert Grier, the famous astronomer from Greene County, Georgia. Historical accounts state that his father Aaron Grier is the step-brother of Jane Grier and thus Andrew Burns is his uncle by virtue of his marriage to Jane. Andrew Burns guided his nephew with the astronomical calculations required for writing an almanac while he was a school teacher at the Union Academy in Greensboro. He influenced his young nephew to matriculate as a candidate for a degree in mathematics and thereafter he not only published the almanac but became a learned astronomer.
  In his Last Will and Testament Robert Grier, the author of the Almanac, made gifts to his grandchildren which included a child named for his great uncle, Andrew Burns Daugherty 1834-1886, and he is a farmer living in Mill Springs, Wayne County, Kentucky in the 1880 census.
  Andrew Burns III arrived on the Georgia frontier about 1773 when he was 2 years of age. His father is documented as being a Colonel during the Revolutionary War and a Commissioner interacting with headsmen and chiefs of the Creek Nation and negotiating treaties after the victory at Yorktown. In 1783 he was also busy organizing surveying parties at the fork of the Appalachee River according to his holographic reports. Nine plats were recorded for Andrew Burns Sr between 1783 and 1789 and he was granted headrights and bounty land grants after the survey plats were drawn and recorded. Evidently his son Andrew learned the process of acquiring title to public domain lands and he commenced to build his own career as a shrewd and successful land speculator.
  In the 1880 census daughter Elizabeth Ann Burns [Lee] Boone, is living with her son Hiram Benoni Lee in Umatila County, Oregon, and states that her father is a native of New York and her mother is a native of Pennsylvania. Daughter Sarah Matilda Burns, born during his second marriage, stated in the census of 1880 that her father was a native of South Carolina, in 1900 of Tennessee, and in 1910 of North Carolina. Another family member claimed Jane was a native of Virginia. It is altogether reasonable that descendants may have believed that Jane Grier, the daughter of Robert Grier and his second wife Mary Caldwell Davis, was a native of York County in Pennsylvania because all her Grier step-siblings were born on the family farm on the waters of Muddy Creek. Muddy Creek is a tributary of the Susquehanna River and it will be remembered that a large area of present day Pennsylvania was claimed by Virginia and was the District of West Augusta with its own court system. Until the boundary was settled by the Mason-Dixon Line an early resident could claim to be a native of Virginia but was actually living in present day Pennsylvania.
  In an effort to seek new opportunities the Robert Grier family moved south on the Great Wagon Road to Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, followed by Abbeville County, South Carolina, and soon thereafter continued further south to the Colony of Georgia. After the death of his first wife, Robert Grier married the widow Mary Caldwell Davis and in 1778 a daughter was born to their union, Jane Grier. Most of the collateral relatives who migrated to Missouri favored spelling the surname as Greer but the lineage of Robert Grier and the Robert Grier Bible spelled the name Grier.
  By the time Andrew Burns Jr and his wife Jane had a family of three children, they were living in Greene County, Georgia where Andrew was busy teaching school at the Union Academy in the town of Greensboro and pursuing a career in land speculation with members of the Davis and Caldwell families. As stated in the History of Greene County, Georgia, by Rice and Williams, at pages 344-345:
  It is believed by many that Griers Almanac had its origin in Greene County at Greensboro. In 1800 an uncle of Robert Grier (author of the almanac) taught school in Greene County in the old Union Academy and his nephew, Robert Grier, was one of his pupils studying higher mathematics and astronomy. At the age of 21 Robert fell heir to an almanac and calculations started by that uncle, Andrew Burns. Robert continued astronomical calculations from a huge rock ten miles east of Crawfordville, near Raytown. He married his first cousin, Elizabeth Grier of Greene County and became an extensive planter and published his almanac.
  On October 30, 1797, in a Probate proceeding in Greene County, Georgia, concerning the estate of James Davis, brother to David and John Davis, the court filings show that Jane Davis, David Davis, and Robert Grier were acting as Principals, and John Davis and Andrew Burns Jr were acting as Sureties. John Davis is a son born to Mary Caldwell during her first marriage with John Davis Sr and thus the step brother of Jane Grier and brother-in-law of Andrew Burns. John Davis also migrated to Cape Girardeau District, Territory of Missouri, and purchased a tract of land by 1805. His daughter Mary Davis married Cyrus Boyce, a native of Delaware, and one of his relatives, Benjamin Boyce, had a son Thomas Boyce who also relocated to Missouri and acquired a tract of land in the area of New Madrid.
  In preparation for a planned move to Spanish Louisiana and new opportunities for land grants, Andrew Burns Jr of the County of Greene, State of Georgia, sold a tract of land on the waters of Richland Creek consisting of 125 acres to William Caldwell for the sum of $400.00. The deed was signed and delivered on March 10, 1802 in the presence of John Burns, Lt. D. Davis, and H. Rutledge. [Deed Book 3, page 512]
  By 1803 Andrew Burns and his family has migrated from Georgia to the area of New Madrid in the new Louisiana Purchase. According to records of the General Land Office and as reported in the American State Papers, Andrew Burns claimed a tract of land in New Madrid in the Territory of Louisiana and lived there from 1803 to at least 1808. By 1805 the family included his wife and five children. The claim was denied in 1808 and by 1815 Andrew is living in Byrd Township, Cape Girardeau District, Territory of Missouri. The following is a summary of the proceedings concerning his claim:
  Andrew Burns, claiming one thousand and fifty argents of land, near the Brushy Prairie, district of New Madrid; produces to the Board a notice to the recorder. Testimony taken, as aforesaid, at New Madrid, June 18, 1808. William Cox, duly sworn, says that premises were inhabited and cultivated from the 1st of March 1803; cleared about four acres in that year, and continued to inhabit and cultivate to this time; a wife and five children in 1803; eight or ten acres in cultivation. December 19, 1810: Present, Lucas Penrose, and Bates, commissioners. It is the opinion of the Board that this claim ought not be granted. [Land Claims in the Missouri Territory, page 433; American State Papers, House of Representatives, 12th Congress, 2nd Session, Public Lands; Vol 2]
  David Caldwell moved from Greene County, Georgia to Cape Girardeau District about 1806 and lived on land purchased by John Davis and then sold the land to Andrew Burns. In Greene County, Georgia, Andrew had owned property having a common boundary with William and Mary [Parker] Caldwell, and his sister, Mary Caldwell, had married John Davis Sr, the father of the John Davis who sold the previously mentioned land to Andrew Burns.
  During the War of 1812 Andrew Burns served as an Ensign in the 4th Regiment, County of Cape Girardeau, in the Company of the First Battalion, and following the end of the war Andrew continued to engage in land transactions with his relative John Davis. Land speculation was a rough go in the early days in southeast Missouri due to the ineptitude of the General Land Office in Jackson and delays in conducting surveys. A dispute concerning the funding of a tract of land resulted in the filing of a lawsuit by John Davis against Andrew Burns, his wife Jane, Robert Patterson, and Robert Morrison to collect an alleged debt arising out of a transaction that had gone from bad to worse for John Davis. After a trial by jury a verdict was returned in favor of Andrew and Jane Burns, as well as the other defendants.
  This legal defeat was soon followed by another lawsuit filed in April of 1819 by Andrew Burns and his wife Jane against Thomas Boyce, who is a relative of John Davis, for slander which resulted in a verdict in favor of Andrew and Jane Burns against the defendant. Boyce was ordered to pay Burns $500 in damages which was a substantial sum in those days. [Court Book A, pages 405-406, and Court Book B, pages 71-72, April 20, 1820, Circuit Court, Cape Girardeau District].
  By July of 1820 the Sheriff was instructed regarding a Writ of Execution for recovery of costs and $500 in damages against Boyce who farmed in Big Prairie, New Madrid County. About a month later Jane Burns was murdered. The historical references regarding her death as a result of the vengeful planning by Thomas Boyce are provided in the research notes for Jane Grier.
  By 1822 it appears that Andrew has recovered to some degree from the shocking manner in which he had lost his wife and he has remarried. In the Independent Patriot published in Jackson on Friday, June 8, 1822 he announced his candidacy for representing the citizens of Cape Girardeau County in the Legislature of Missouri and outlined several items that were on his agenda. Since the article reveals his political stance on issues that were deemed important when Missouri was granted statehood, the majority of his views and comments are included:
  . . . it is requested that I should declare my sentiments on the subject of the relief system. In doing so I will refer you to the . . . Constitution of this State: That all political power is vested in and derived from the people. That the people of this State have the inherent, sole, and exclusive right of regulating the internal government and policies thereof, and of altering and abolishing their constitution and form of government whenever it may be necessary to their safety and happiness.
 That the people have the right peaceably to assemble for their common good and apply to those vested with powers of government for redress of grievances, by petition or remonstrance etc. I shall be in favor of the proposed amendments of the constitution; I am for the remission of no more loan office paper, but to make the best possible use of what is already out. As to property laws which are injurious in their nature, I wish to see them repealed. I wish to see all the salaries reduced from the Governor down to the constable. I wish to see the military fines reduced in time of peace. Another mode of relief that I would recommend is industry aided by economy. I wish to pass such laws as will be equal in their operation on all. I wish to see some law passed for carrying into effect the donation granted by Congress for the use of schools within the limits of this State.
 I submit these reflections to you; if I should be elected I will do all that is in the power of one individual, and I shall always attend to the voice of the people. I am your servant to command . . .
 A. Burns
  Sounds like he still has his heart in the classroom at Union Academy in Greensboro, supporting his students and the cause of education. He was also listed as a candidate for the State House of Representatives from Cape Girardeau in the issue for July 27th in the Independent Patriot.
  Notes from a manuscript © 2006 and 2017. All rights reserved.
  The writer acknowledges the previous research of Gwendolyn Pigg and appreciates her review of the placement of the children born to Andrew and Jane and the children of his second marriage.


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