Burtis, William Richard Mulharen

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Murray Barkley, “BURTIS, WILLIAM RICHARD MULHAREN,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 11, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/burtis_william_richard_mulharen_11E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Lawyer, author, journalist, and temperance advocate; b. 1818 in Saint John, N.B.; d. 12 Dec. 1882 in York County, N.B .
    • Admitted to the bar as attorney in 1839 and as barrister in 1841, Burtis gradually built up a large and successful legal practice in Saint John. He was appointed common clerk of Saint John in 1855, but resigned in 1863 because of ill health, and later acted as a valuator of land damages on the Intercolonial Railway until his retirement in 1878. His major contributions, however, were made in the fields of literature, journalism, and the New Brunswick temperance movement.
    • During the early years of his legal practice in Saint John, Burtis played a major role in the New Brunswick temperance movement. In 1843 he became a principal organizer of the Saint John Young Men’s Total Abstinence Society, and lectured frequently in support of the moral crusade to eradicate the evil of strong drink.
    • Burtis resumed his literary activities in 1860, entering a competition sponsored by the Saint John Mechanics’ Institute for the best essay on “New Brunswick, as a home for emigrants.” In a field of 18, Burtis’ intensely patriotic and fervently anti-American entry was judged fifth, and, along with the four ranking above it, was published and distributed throughout the province and the United Kingdom on the orders of the New Brunswick government. Burtis’ essay, whose purpose was to attract immigrants to New Brunswick and away from the .United States, emphasized the cruel treatment the province’s loyalist founders had suffered from their American compatriots, the extreme democracy of the republican system of government in contrast to the superior British constitutional system, and the social disorders said to be characteristic of American life.
    • In 1867, in celebration of the advent of confederation, Burtis exercised his poetic talents in The new dominion, a poem, prophesying with patriotic grandiloquence the future affluence of New Brunswick and greatness of Canada under the British constitution, in sharp contradistinction to the United States, torn by civil war. 
  • Son of Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory –https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=1071
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