Burwell, Adam Hood

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Michael Williams, “BURWELL, ADAM HOOD,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 7, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/burwell_adam_hood_7E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Author, journalist, and clergyman; b. 4 June 1790 near Fort Erie (Ont.), son of Adam Burwell and Sarah Veal; m. 22 Feb. 1829 Sarah Barnard in Troy, N.Y.; d. 2 Nov. 1849 in Kingston, Upper Canada.
    • Burwell’s father, a native of New Jersey, was probably a loyalist during the American Revolutionary War; in 1786 he settled in what would soon become Upper Canada and in 1797 he received 850 acres of land in Bertie Township for military service.
    • Adam Hood Burwell spent his childhood on the family farm in Bertie Township. By 1818 the family had moved to the flourishing settlement on the north shore of Lake Erie founded by Thomas Talbot. The settlement had been partly surveyed by Adam’s elder brother, Mahlon, who had established the Talbot Road. While working on Mahlon’s farm at Port Talbot, Burwell had a vision in which an oracle foretold the birth of a great poet in Upper Canada. That poet, Burwell concluded, was himself. “Talbot Road: a poem,” published that same year in the Niagara Spectator (Niagara-on-the-Lake), is the first long poem of pioneer life in Upper Canada by a native-born author. Dedicated to Talbot, it combines aristocratic 18th-century poetic diction with local charm and colour.
    • Talbot eventually recommended Burwell to Bishop Jacob Mountain as a candidate for holy orders. In March 1827, at Quebec, Burwell was ordained as a deacon of the Church of England. His first appointment was at Lennoxville, but by 1830 he and his family had moved to Trois-Rivières.
    • Burwell continued to write and publish (primarily in Montreal’s Literary Garland between January and September 1849). The neoclassical emphasis of his early poetry had, however, been replaced by the intense mysticism evident in such poems as “Nebuchadnezzar’s vision of the tree . . .” and “Summer evening contemplations.” Essays like “On the doctrine of social unity” and “On the philosophy of human perfection and happiness” continued to reflect Burwell’s commitment to the achievement of a fundamentalist Christian society. These writings did not, it seems, find a receptive audience. Adam Hood Burwell served in the Catholic Apostolic Church until his death.
  • Son of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=1073
  • Find A Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/206124862/adam-hood-burwell