Burtt, John

Burtt, John a Presbyterian minister, was born at Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, Scotland, May 23,1789. When a youth he was decoyed into a boat by a press-gang, and made to serve five years in the British navy. He was afterwards liberated through the interference of a British officer, when he returned to Scotland and devoted himself to literary studies. He taught school sixteen months in Kilmarnock, and went to Glasgow to attend lectures in the university. In 1817 he came to America, and joined the Sixth Street Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia. Determined to elevate himself to the ministry, he entered Princeton Theological Seminary in 1822; and after remaining about a year, he was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Philadelphia, and was ordained and installed pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Salem, N. J., in 1824. He remained pastor of this Church six years, when he became editor of the Presbyterian, Philadelphia. In 1833 he took charge of The Standard, a religious paper published in Cincinnati, O., and was (1835-1842) pastor of the Fifth Presbyterian Church of that city. He was elected a professor of Washington College, but declined to accept, and in 1842 took charge of the Church at Blackwoodtown, N. J., which he retained until 1859. ' He was for many years the translator of the French contributions to the Presbyterian. He died at Salem, March 24,1866. See Wilson, Presb. Hist. Almanac, 1867, p. 124; Gen. Cat. of Princeton Sem. 1881, p. 38.