Frank Leslie Burnett Biography


	This biography appears on pages 33-34 in "History of Dakota Territory" 
	by George W. Kingsbury, Vol. IV (1915) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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				FRANK LESLIE BURNETT.  

	Frank Leslie Burnett is clerk of the court of Lake county and as 
such has made a creditable record since called to his present position 
in 1910. He is now serving for the third term and only words of 
commendation are heard concerning the manner in which he discharges the 
duties of his office. Mr. Burnett is a native of the neighboring state 
of Iowa. He was born on the 20th of September, 1871, and is the only 
child of Franklin J. and Sophia E. Burnett, who in the year 1878 left 
Iowa and removed to South Dakota. The father secured a homestead claim 
in Buffalo township, Minnehaha county, and at once began to till the 
soil and develop the fields. Year after year he carefully carried on 
general agricultural pursuits, but in 1898 put aside the more arduous 
labors of the farm and retired to Madison, after which he enjoyed a 
well merited and well earned rest to the time of his death in 1911, at 
Hot Springs, South Dakota. His widow survived him about two years and 
died at the home of her son in Madison in 1913. They were worthy 
pioneer people of their part of the state and took an active interest 
in everything that pertained to public progress.  

	Frank Leslie Burnett was a student in Brookings College, also in 
the Sioux Falls high school and in the Madison Normal School. He was 
graduated from the high school with the class of 1893 and from the 
Madison Normal in 1896. Liberal educational training thus well 
qualified him for life's practical and responsible duties. Following 
his graduation Mr. Burnett took up the profession of teaching, in which 
he continued for four years. He was an able educator, giving 
satisfaction in the schools with which he was connected, but, thinking 
to find a more profitable field of labor, he turned his attention to 
commercial pursuits and for ten years was engaged in the clothing 
business. He then spent two years in tile office of deputy county 
treasurer and on the expiration of that period was elected, in the fall 
of 1910, to the position of clerk of the court of Lake county. He 
served for two years, was given the renomination and was again elected 
in 1912 and was reelected in 1914. He has made a most efficient public 
officer and has met his duties in a manner that has brought credit to 
himself and has proven thoroughly satisfactory to his constituents. He 
has also served as alderman and has been city assessor for three terms. 
No public trust reposed in him has ever been betrayed in the Slightest 
degree and his record has at all  times been commendable.

	Pleasantly situated in his home life, Mr. Burnett was married on 
the 28th of December, 1898, to Miss Mary E. Marquart, a daughter of 
Peter and Mary Marquart, of Minnesota, who became early settlers of 
South Dakota. The children of this marriage are Frank, Donald, Graydon 
and Dorothy. The third in the family is now attending the normal 
school.  

	Mr. Burnett seeks recreation from arduous official labors in 
tennis, baseball, fishing and hunting. He finds pleasant social and 
fraternal relations in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and has 
passed through all the chairs in the subordinate lodge, the encampment 
and the canton. On January 1, 1915, he was appointed by Colonel George 
H. Waskey, as assistant adjutant general of the department of South 
Dakota, which office he now fills. He indicates his interest in the 
moral progress of the community through his membership in the 
Presbyterian church. He has always voted with the republican party and 
in matters of citizenship has displayed public-spirited devotion to the 
general good. There have been no unusual or spectacular chapters in his 
life record, but those with whom he has come in contact recognize his 
sterling personal worth- and see in him many of those characteristic 
which in every land and clime awaken confidence and regard.