Edward Burd (443)

Edward Burd (5 February 1749–24 July 1833) was a military officer, notary, and a member of the American Philosophical Society, elected in 1785. Born in Pennsylvania to Colonel James Burd and his wife, Edward Burd studied law until the Revolutionary War interrupted his studies and he joined the fight for independence. During the war, the British took Burd prisoner and it was only through his brother’s intervention that they released him in the presence of George Washington (1776). He married his cousin, Elizabeth Shippen, daughter of a fellow Penn trustee and Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, APS Member Edward Shippen. Some years after the dust of the war settled, likely through his marital connections, Burd began work as a protonotary for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court (1788-1805), and served as a trustee of the Academy and College of Philadelphia (1790-1791), and then maintained that position as the institution evolved into the University of Pennsylvania (1791-1833). He died in Philadelphia and joined many other notable early Americans in the soil of the Christ Church Burial Ground.