Nebraska
Due to his active participation in the Democratic Party, President Franklin Pierce appointed Burt Third Auditor of the United States Treasury Department in 1853. The next year Pierce needed to select governor for the newly create Nebraska Territory. After William Orlando Butler declined the position, the President selected Burt. The new governor was commissioned on August 2, 1854 and left his home in Pendleton for Nebraska on September 11.
Burt's son Armistead and several of his neighbors accompanied him of the four week trip to the new territory. The new governor had suffered from digestive problems for several years and experienced an intensification of symptoms while en route. His medical condition was such that he spent several days in St. Louis, Missouri under care of a physician. Upon his October 7 arrival in Bellevue, Burt had experienced a relapse and was immediately confined to a sick bed in the local Presbyterian mission to the Oto and Omaha.
Judge Fenner Ferguson administered the oath of office to Burt on October 16, 1854. Two days later, on October 18, 1854, the governor died. Following the death of Governor Burt, Territorial Secretary Thomas B. Cuming became acting governor until the arrival of Governor Mark W. Izard.
Governor Burt's body was returned to Pendleton, South Carolina for burial. In January 1855, the Nebraska Territorial Legislature named Burt County, Nebraska in honor of the deceased governor.
Read more about this topic: Francis Burt (Nebraska)
Famous quotes containing the word nebraska:
“What should concern Massachusetts is not the Nebraska Bill, nor the Fugitive Slave Bill, but her own slaveholding and servility. Let the State dissolve her union with the slaveholder.... Let each inhabitant of the State dissolve his union with her, as long as she delays to do her duty.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)