The Biographical Dictionary and Portrait Gallery of Representative Men of Chicago, Milwaukee and the World's Columbian Exposition

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BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY AND PORTRAIT GALLERY.
He sold his interest in this property for six hundred thousand dollars, and in the folloAvIng four years opened and developed the folloAving additional mines: The Bessemer, Iron King, Bonnie (named after his lovely little daughter). Blue Jacket, First National, Tontine, Valley and Anvil, the most of Avhich are still profitable and producing mines.
With a start of only a few thousand dollars Mr. Burton accumulated, by his indomitable avIU and intensified energy, in the short period of three years, a fortune of tAvo and a quarter millions of dollars, and became the acknowledged chief pro¬ moter of the Gogebic range.
His present Avork is confined entirely to smelt¬ ing and refining silver ore in Mexico, where his family oAvns the controlling interest in the Hi¬ dalgo Smelting and Refining Works, the largest and most complete works of their kind in the re¬ public. The company also OAvns valuable mines, which are the foundation for a still more remark¬ able future, in so far as the accumulation of money is concerned, for Mr. Burton.
In politics he has ever been an out-and-out Re¬ publican, and while he has never desired or ac¬ cepted a political office, he has been an active and instrumental factor in many of the noted victories 6f his party, both in national and state elections. His first fight was with an Irish boy who attempted to pull down his Fremont and Day¬ ton flag in 1856.
In all of the presidential campaigns since 1864 he has taken an active part ; in the last three, filh ing, under the direction of the Republican State Central Committee, a line of appointments throughout the State of Wisconsin as a speaker. He has also delivered many lectures in the edu¬ cational and religious fields.
In 1886 Mr. Burton conceived the idea of open¬ ing up commerce with Honduras by completing the Aguan Canal. This was one of the most im¬ portant undertakings of his life. He furnished the money for the Aguan Navigation Company to build a canal twenty-three miles in length, con¬ necting the Caribbean Sea from a point near the city of Truxillo to a point above the rapids in the Aguan river. Three-fourths of this canal work had already been done when the financial reverses in his iron business compelled him to sus¬ pend operations.    He had a concession from the
Honduras government, which gave his company two hundred and sixty thousand acres of mahog¬ any land, with the right to cut the timber and ship it from the country without expense, and also gave them control of the navigation of the Aguan river for ninety-nine years. It also gave them the only banking charter which existed in Honduras, and they opened a bank in the old fort built by Cortez at Truxillo. The vice-president of Honduras, Don Senor Abelarde Zalaya, in 1887 made a journey from Honduras to the United States, and visited Mr. Burton at his home in Lake Geneva, to assure him of governmental protection in the completion of the canal.
In the commercial world he has been a promi¬ nent figure, and has owned and conducted vast enterprises, among which may be mentioned the large seven-story Burton Block in Chicago, which became noted through being burned to the ground four times in four years; also his estab¬ lishment of the Burton line of steamers on Lake Geneva. In addition to this he built a fifty-five thousand dollar hotel—the Burton House—thirty- five houses, thirteen stores and a large iron foundry at Hurley, on Gogebic range.
Mr. Burton has no organic connection with any religious body, nor adheres to any creed, but he is not without firm religious convictions. He possesses a decidedly religious temperment, be¬ lieving sympathy, humanity to man and philan¬ thropy to be the formulated ideals of Christianity. He believes in God, as God has revealed Himself in nature and in human life ; believing in man as the crowning work of creation, whose destiny is Avorthy the study and toil of ages.
While his home is in Lake Geneva, his business headquarters have been in Milwaukee since 1884, and he is better known in business circles as a resi¬ dent of Mihvaukee.
Mr. Burton's personality is no less remarkable .and worthy than his business career. He is a charming conversationalist, of liberal thought, always seeking to place his auditors in -direct conjunction with the full sympathy and sunshine of his nature. He is the soul of courtesy and considerate kindness. His extensive travels and wide experience in the world have only served to develop this natural characteristic and bring him into closer touch Avith all the world.
He is an indefatigable worker, but always finds