BENJAMIN EASTBURN BURNS
Real Estate- Mountain View
Bio-Pen Pictures
SURNAMES: JORDAN, HENLEY
was born in Tippecanoe County, Indiana, November 16, 1840.
His father, John, was a native of Greenbriar County, Virginia, and emigrated to
Indiana prior to 1840. His mother, nee Nellie Jordan, was also a native of
Virginia. They raised a family of thirteen children, of whom six sons and one
daughter are living. Benjamin was raised in Tippecanoe County, a mile and a half
from the Wabash River, and lived with his parents until seventeen years of age.
He then went to Lebanon Academy, in Laclede County, Missouri, and in 1860 came
to California, where he remained a year and a half, when he returned to Indiana.
Shortly thereafter he went to Philadelphia, and for a while attended private
school. He then went to New York and enlisted in Company L, Thirteenth New York
Cavalry, serving as Orderly Sergeant, Sergeant Major, and Quartermaster and
Commissary Sergeant, and on the night of President Lincoln's assassination the
first squadron of cavalry in Washington City, commanded by Major Lord, was
summoned by his bugle-call and were immediately on duty at several places. The
next day they started out after Ford. Upon being mustered out, in 1865, he was
appointed to a clerkship in the War Department, where he remained a year, when
he was appointed by President Johnson as Assistant Superintendent of Indian
Affairs, which included Kansas, New Mexico, and the adjacent country.
In 1869 he came again to California, where he has resided ever since. He first lived in Nevada County for five years, and then at other places until October, 1880, when he came to Mountain View and located. Within a year he built a drug-store, and in 1882 was elected a Justice of the Peace for Fremont Township. In 1884 he was nominated for the Assembly on the Democratic ticket, but was defeated. In 1886 was again elected a Justice of the Peace, which position he still holds. During the past three or four years he has been engaged in the real-estate business, and is now one of the leading real-estate dealers of Mountain View.
Mr. Burns was married, March 17, 1866, to Miss Kate Henley, a niece of the late Thomas J. Henley, of California.
Pen Pictures From The Garden of the World or Santa Clara County, California, Illustrated. - Edited by H. S. Foote.- Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1888.
Pg. 607
SANTA CLARA COUNTY BIOGRAPHY PROJECT