Daniel Burnet

He was the oldest of nine children born to John and Catherine Devonport Burnet,^[1] English settlers of the Carolinas.^[2] His gravestone is generally transcribed as birthyear 1763,^[2] but a family bible record says 1768.^[3] His dad rode with "the Swamp Fox" of the Carolinas Francis Marion during the American Revolutionary War.^[2]

He emigrated to Spanish Natchez in 1790 and settled near the Grindstone Ford.^[2] He was granted approximately 2,000 arpents by the Spanish government,^[4] and he built a mill on Bayou Pierre that lent its works to the placename Grindstone Ford.^[1] A sawmill was in place by 1792 and he wanted to add a gristmill.^[5] He assisted Stephen Minor and William Dunbar "in surveying the boundary between West Florida and the Mississippi Territory".^[6]

He was appointed U.S. postmaster at Grindstone Ford on the Natchez Trace in 1805.^[4] He was a commander of the Claiborne County militia.^[2] He served on a "frontier committee" to negotiate with the Choctaw in 1813.^[7] He served as president of the Mississippi Territory legislative council from 1805 to 1809, and was speaker of the house from 1813 to 1815.^[2][6] He represented his county in the Mississippi constitutional convention of 1817.^[6] He served as an Indian treaty commissioner in 1818 with the Choctaws.^[6]

He died May 7, 1827 in Claiborne County, Mississippi.^[8] One obituary said he was 50 years old when he died.^[8] He is buried at Grindstone Ford Cemetery.^[2]

The executor of his estate was Samuel Cobun, widower of Burnet's late sister, Margaret.^[9][3] Cobun reported in a letter of 1835 that Richard Saunders, who was a "very estimable and much respected mechanic, a Cotton Gin and Mill Wright," had hired himself out and bought his freedom from the estate at a rate of $250 a year for four years, as well as buying a woman and her six-year-old son for $1,125. The family had recently departed from New Orleans for Liberia.^[9]

Daniel Burnet's "intelligent and fascinating" sister Mary Burnet married Frances Nailor and then Dr. Thomas Anderson of Vicksburg.^[2] His brother John Burnet (1782–1843)^[3] served in the Mississippi Territory legislature.^[2] His brother Amos Burnet (1789–1824)^[3] was a delegate to the 1817 constitutional convention from Hancock County in the Pearl River district.^[10]

His first wife was named Patterson.^[2] His second wife was Agnes Wilson Humphreys, grandmother of Benjamin Grubb Humphreys.^[2][11] Anges Wilson Humphreys Burnet was said to be some relation of Founding Father James Wilson.^[12]