Burdette, William A.

Biography

William A. Burdette (sometimes Berdett, Birdett, Burdetti, and Birdettia) and his wife Ethel were two of three Black converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, baptized on the same day in 1914 in Chester County, Pennsylvania. William spent the bulk of his life working as a coal miner in the Mid-Atlantic states and at some point came in contact with a Latter-day Saint coalminer named Matthew Barnes. Barns had already introduced Levi Hamilton (the other Black convert baptized on the same day as William and Ethel) to the Church while working in a dark coalmine one day.[1] He likely followed the same pattern with William. It is not clear what level of engagement William maintained with his new faith after leaving Pennsylvania, but surviving sources do indicate that he spent a hardscrabble life on the economic margins before he died in 1931.

William Burdette was born in Casey County, Kentucky on March 9, 1870. His mother’s name was Ann, and his father went by either Harper or Andrew. William had three older sisters (Matilda Quintille, Francis, and Mary) and at least two younger siblings, a sister, Docia, and a brother, Jacin. While William grew up in the post-Civil War era, his mother had likely been enslaved and his father may have been too even though the 1920 census describes him as an (improbable) immigrant from France. In any case, William was likely of mixed racial descent according to two census records, both of which labeled him as "mulatto." Other sources described him as "black," or "negro" and two different clerks scrawled the word "colored" in the margins of two surviving documents--his marriage record and his Latter-day Saint membership record. [2]

William worked as a laborer throughout his life and moved throughout the coal mining regions of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. He likely met his wife, Ethel (Wells or Hill) when he lived in Leadsville, West Virginia.[3] They married in Girard, Ohio on June 2, 1913, and then moved to Pennsylvania within a year, likely to take advantage of the booming coal mining industry.[4]

It was there in Pennsylvania that William and Ethel came into contact with members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is not clear how they first met Matthew Barnes, a local Latter-day Saint and an ordained elder in the New England branch of the Church, but Barnes was known for preaching in the coalmines and had already shared the Latter-day Saint gospel with another Black man, Levi Hamilton. Perhaps Hamilton then invited William and Ethel into the conversations, or Barnes did himself. Whatever the circumstances, the Burdettes were receptive to the message, possibly because they were newly married and were contemplating starting a family—both big life events that may have prompted them to consider their relationship to each other and to the divine. On June 10, 1914, Matthew Barnes baptized William and Ethel, as well as Levi Hamilton, in Rock Run, a stream in Chester County, Pennsylvania. That Sunday, Barns and another Latter-day Saint named William Smith confirmed all three converts before their new congregation.[5] William was 44 years old at the time and Ethel was 28. Their daughter, Lucile, was born about a year later in 1915.

For the first few years of his marriage William and his young family lived in Chartiers, Pennsylvania, a coal mining town in the southwestern corner of the state.[6] By 1926, William and Ethel had moved to Wheeling, West Virginia, where he worked for the Costanzo Coal Mining Company. He and Ethel lived in Wheeling’s Elm Grove neighborhood.[7]

It is possible that William and Ethel maintained a Latter-day Saint affiliation as they moved to West Virginia, but the paper trail in Church records ends following that move. Pennsylvania membership records indicate the couple’s transfer to West Virginia but that is the last known sign of their status.[8] Missionaries had organized a branch in Wheeling in 1924 but it closed that same year, after the missionaries moved away.[9] By the time Ethel and William arrived in Wheeling there were no known Latter-day Saint congregations there and it is impossible to know the status of their religious affiliation after that.

It is likely that finances were always a struggle for the Burdettes but that was especially true towards the end of William’s life. In 1930, William became a resident of West Virginia’s Ohio County Poor Farm near Liberty, West Virginia.[10] Much like workhouses, poor farms were institutions created for the poor and indigent and were designed to help them "get back on their feet.” The Ohio County Poor Farm had over 100 “inmates” when William lived there, mostly middle-aged and elderly individuals.[11]

William Burdette passed away on March 5, 1931, just four days shy of his sixty-first birthday. He died of chronic endocarditis (heart disease) after having been a resident of the Ohio County Poor Farm for over a year. He was buried in the Old Stone Church Cemetery in Wheeling, West Virginia.[12]

By Dorie Cameron with research assistance from Sarah Hilton Drake

[1] Jessica Guynn, “Levi Hamilton,” Century of Black Mormons.

[2] United States, 1880 Census, Kentucky, Casey County, District 21; United States, 1900 Census, West Virginia, Randolph County, Leadsville; United States, 1920 Census, Pennsylvania, Washington County, Chartiers Bureau; United States, 1930 Census, West Virginia, Ohio County, Liberty; Ohio, County Marriage Records, 1774-1993, Trumbull County, 2 June 1913, William Birdett to Ethel Wells; Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Pennsylvania State, Part 2, Segment 1, New England Branch, CR 375 8, box 5298, folder 1, image 357 and 366, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[3] United States, 1900 Census, West Virginia, Randolph County, Leadsville.

[4] Ohio, County Marriage Records, 1774-1993, Trumbull County, 2 June 1913, William Birdett to Ethel Wells. 

[5] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Pennsylvania State, Part 2, Segment 1, New England Branch, CR 375 8, box 5298, folder 1, image 357 and 366, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[6] United States, 1920 Census, Pennsylvania, Washington County, Chartiers Bureau.

[7] Wheeling, West Virginia, Directories, 1926, 1822-1995.

[8] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Pennsylvania State, Part 2, Segment 1, New England Branch, CR 375 8, box 5298, folder 1, image 357 and 366, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[9] Wheeling Branch, Mormon Places.

[10] United States, 1930 Census, West Virginia, Ohio County, Liberty.

[11] The site would later become a tuberculosis sanitorium, and then a mental institution. See, “Ohio County Tuberculosis Sanitarium, West Virginia," Sanitariums, 7 April 2017; Steve Novotney, “The Legends of Roney’s Point Examined,” Weelunk, 23 November 2014.

[12] West Virginia, Deaths Index, 1853-1973, William Burdetti, 5 March 1931, Liberty District, Ohio County, West Virginia.

Documents

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