Fresno County Biographies

Frank J. Burleigh

Submitted by Sally Kaleta, November, 2006.

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

	Frank J. Burleigh, one of the enterprising business men of 
Fresno, was born in Hill, New Hampshire, February 25, 1848. In the fall of 1854 
he moved with his parents to Lawrence, Kansas. His father rented the first hotel 
built in the town, a sod structure, 100 x 30 feet, one story, with thatched 
roof. A year later he moved to Riley County, Kansas, took up 160 acres of land 
on Deep creek, and remained there until 1861. From that time until 1869 he was 
located at Manhattan, engaged in running freight wagons to Leavenworth. In 1869, 
he again took up farming in Riley County, on Timber Creek, and made that place 
his home until 1874, when he moved his family to California and settled in 
Fresno County. Frank J. Burleigh was reared in Kansas, and was married in 
Manhattan, to Miss Mary A. Harris, a native of England. After their arrival in 
California he went to the mountains and worked in sawmills until 1878, when he 
returned to Fresno and brought with him a six-horse load of lumber, with which 
he built a two-room house of J Street. With that as a foundation he has since 
built a commodious residence. From time to time he has invested in city 
property, and he owns a twenty acre tract in Central colony. In 1880 he built 
his first warehouse, between Inyo and Kern Streets, in partnership with S. 
Harris, and in 1882 they stared a lumber business, being agents for the Puget 
Sound Lumber Company. The partnership continued until 1884, when they dissolved 
and closed up the business. Mr. Burleigh then dealt more extensively in live 
stock, in which he had been engaged since 1878. In March, 1888, he began his 
present warehouse, between Mono and Ventura Streets, on the west side of the 
railroad. This building is 60  x 250 feet, with a capacity  of 8,000 tons. Mr. 
Burleigh deals extensively in wheat, barley, and livestock. The present year he 
has sold 150,000 grain sacks to the farmers. He and his wife are the parents of 
two children: Charles M., born in 1876, and Hattie L., born in 1878. Both are at 
home attending school. Having been deprived of educational advantages in his 
youth, Mr. Burleigh is the more careful  that his children shall be educated. He 
has met with serious reverses during his career in Fresno, but by diligence and 
perseverance overcame and settled a loss of $15,000, and now carries on a 
lucrative and satisfactory business.

Source: "The Memorial and Biographical History of the Counties of Fresno,  
Tulare and Kern, California," Lewis Publ. Co., 1892, pp.295-296.