Joseph Burnett was an American philanthropist and manufacturing chemist.
Background
Joseph Burnett was born on November 11, 1820 in Southborough, Massachussets to Charles and Keziah (Pond) Burnett. The name Burnett appears among those of the pioneer citizens of the town. John Burnett was the founder of the family in New England.
Education
Joseph was educated in the district schools of Southborough, Massachussets. At fifteen he went to the English and Latin School in Worcester, but never attended college. The study of medicine, which, however, he never practised, gave him the title of Doctor.
Career
At seventeen he established with Theodore Metcalf a perfumery and extract manufacturing business, --one of the earliest in America--from which he made a fortune. In 1854 he sold his interest and started a firm of his own, Joseph Burnett & Company, manufacturing chemists. This firm became so successful that its products are now known the world over. Burnett was also a pioneer in the raising of high-bred stock in New England and started in 1847 the well-known "Deerfoot Farm" at Southborough. He was devoted to Southborough and until he was fifty-five years old and business took him to Boston, he spent every winter there. He showed his love for the town in benefactions of every kind.
As early as 1860 he built a small stone church, the first Episcopal church in Southborough. Services had been held ten years before in the schoolhouse at Southville with ten or twelve people present. After a decade of only occasional services at Southborough, St. Mark's Parish was organized and received help from other places for a year or two. Burnett then gave the parish a lot in the center of the township on the condition that the church to be built here was to be free to all with no distinction as to wealth, color, race, or station. The cost of building it was paid by Burnett.
His religious interests were an unusually large factor in his life and led later to the founding of St. Mark's School. He had sent his oldest son, Edward, to St. Paul's, the first church school in New England. This had been founded in 1855, and ten years later was so successful that it had a long waiting list.
When he was entering another son, Harry, the head master, Dr. Coit, suggested to him that as he had four sons it might be a good thing to start a church school in Massachusetts.
The great success of St. Paul's probably encouraged Burnett in carrying out the suggestion. In 1865 the school was started. Its founder gave it the benefits of his wide business experience, his time, and his wealth, and spared no pains to make it in every way successful. Until his death, as a result of an accident in 1894, he was treasurer of the corporation and his son then succeeded him.
Records of the meetings of the Board of Trustees show the constant growth of the school and its founder's interest. Burnett found opportunity also to give his services in various other channels of usefulness during his life.
He was member of the school board of Southborough, vestryman of St. John's Church, Framingham, of St. Paul's, Hopkinton, and was one of the original incorporators of the Church of the Advent in Boston.
Governor Alexander H. Rice appointed him prison commissioner and he became chairman of that body when it was entrusted with the erection of a reformatory for women at Sherborn. He was the first road commissioner appointed by the town, and to him it largely owes its excellent roads and beautiful trees.
(Useful Toil: Autobiographies of Working People from the 1...)
Religion
Burnett was a very religious person and faith played a large factor in his life. One of his greatest gifts, according to historians of St. Paul's school, which he founded, was the example set by his own life of Christian reverence, unselfishness, and modesty.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
He "was at the school every afternoon the first year" wrote one boy of the class of 1871, "and not only took an intense interest in the school itself as a whole, but also in each boy, in fact, he looked after the younger boys as if he were their father, and perhaps more than some of their fathers ever had. "
Connections
He married in 1847 Josephine Cutter, the daughter of Edward and Ruth Cutter of Boston, by whom he had eleven children.