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from Past and Present of Mahaska County, Iowa by Manoah Hedge The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co. 1906
Alfred W. Burdick, an architect of Oskaloosa, whose proficiency in the line of his chosen profession has secured him a constantly growing clientage, was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1862. He is a son of Chester F. Burdick, who was born in Washington county, New York, and came of Holland Dutch ancestry, the name having been originally spelled Von Burdyke. He was a Methodist minister and for a number of years was pastor of churches of that denomination in Albany, New York, and also in Troy, New York, while he was presiding elder of a district for several years in those places. He was likewise located at different times at Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and Plattsburg, New York, and for a number of years was the financial agent of the Troy Conference Academy at Poultney, Vermont. He was united in the holy bonds of matrimony to Miss Julia Anna Pearsall, who was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, a daughter of Phineas C. and Catherine (Morgan) Pearsall, of French and English descent. Her father was a near relative of Ex-Governor Theodore Randolph, of New Jersey. His business was that of a clothing merchant. His wife belonged to the same family as General Morgan of Revolutionary fame. Like her husband, Mrs. Chester F. Burdick was a devoted Christian, holding membership in the Methodist Episcopal church. He devoted nearly fifty years of his life to the active work of the ministry and became a leading divine of the Methodist denomination in New York. He was a man of scholarly attainments and of unfaltering zeal and his influence was of no restricted order. He died in 1895, at the age of seventy- four years, while his wife now survives him, living in Oskaloosa at the age of sixty-four years. They became the parents of a son and daughter, the latter being Jessie Meredith, now the wife of the Rev. Jay W. Somerville, pastor of the Central Methodist Episcopal church of Oskaloosa, who is represented elsewhere in this work. Alfred W. Burdick, who is his sister's senior, was a public-school student in Albany, New York, and afterward attended the academy at Poultney, Vermont. Subsequently he spent a few years in Wall street, the great financial center of America, being connected with the banking and brokerage firm of Monroe & Wyckoff. In the meantime he attended Columbia University of New York city, where he pursued a course in sciences and also to some extent studied architecture. He was afterward in the employ of the Central Railroad Company of New Jersey under the superintendent of motive power, acting as assistant chief clerk in charge of repairs and new work on passenger and freight cars. His health becoming impaired, he retired from active business life for a few years and then took up his abode in Burlington, Vermont, where he opened an office. He was also clerk of the board of education there. In June, 1901, he came to Oskaloosa. where he took up a number of special studies in relation to architecture in connection with a course in the Armour Institute of Technology in Chicago. In 1903 he entered the office of Frank E. Wetherell, an architect, remaining with him until Mr. Wetherell removed to Des Moines, after which Mr. Burdick continued the business under Mr. Wetherell's name for several months, but on the 1st of June, 1905, he embarked in business on his own account, continuing in the same office, and here he has since remained with an increasing clientage and bright prospects for the future. Mr. Burdick is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, deeply interested in its work and its various activities, and he is now serving as secretary of the Sunday-school. His political views generally accord with the principies of the republican party, but he casts an independent ballot.
Past and Present of Mahaska County, Iowa
Mahaska County, Iowa Genealogy