Francis Marion Burdick

Francis Marion Burdick was born at De Ruyter, New York on August 1, 1845.[1] His parents were Albert G. Burdick and Eunetia Yale Wheeler Burdick.[2]

On June 8, 1875, he married Sarah Underhill Kellogg, the daughter of Charles C. Kellogg, who founded a Utica lumber company.[3]

Francis and Sarah were Presbyterians.[2] They had a son, Charles (1883–1940), who graduated from Columbia Law School in 1908 and became a professor of law at Cornell.[1][4][5] They also had three daughters: Anna (1877–1960), Katherine (1879–1963), and Flora.[2]

On June 3, 1920, Francis Marion Burdick died at his home in De Ruyter[4] while working in his garden.[2] He had remained academically active up to his death.[5]

He attended the De Ruyter Institute and Oneida Conference Seminary in Cazenovia,[5] and went on to study at Hamilton College with Professor Theodore Dwight. In 1869, he graduated from Hamilton. He briefly taught Greek at Whitestone Seminary and—though personally a Democrat— he wrote editorials for the Utica Morning Herald, a Republican newspaper,[2] before returning to Hamilton. In 1872, he graduated from the law department.[1]

Upon receiving his law degree in 1872, he joined the firm of Beardsley, Burdick and Beardsley in Utica, N. Y. The Citizens Party asked him to run for mayor,[2] and he was elected and held office 1882–1883.[1]

Soon after Burdick was elected mayor, Theodore Dwight retired from Hamilton, and Burdick became his successor in the Maynard King professorship of law and history.[5]

When Cornell University opened its college of law in 1887, Burdick was among the first faculty members.[5]

In 1895, Hamilton gave him the degree of Doctor of Laws.[5]

In 1891, he was appointed as Columbia University's first Theodore Dwight Professor of Law,[6][5] He worked closely with Dean Keener and Professors George Folger Canfield, George W. Kirchway, and George Miller Cumming to develop the law school. He retired in 1916.[7] He and Kirchway joined and left the faculty Columbia Law School at the same times, each having completed 25 years.

From 1907 until his death, he was a Commissioner on Uniform Laws representing the State of New York.[5]

He was a member of the Committee of Fourteen in New York City.[5]

Besides contributing extensively to legal periodicals he published:

• Cases on Torts (1895)
• The Law of Sales (third edition, 1913)
• Cases on Sales (second edition, 1901)
• The Law of Torts (1905, second edition, 1908)
• Law of Partnership (second edition, 1906)
• The Essentials of Business Law (1908)