Burritt II, Elijah Hinsdale

Elijah Hinsdale Burritt II (July 11, 1835 - 1879) was a bookseller and publisher active in St. Paul, Minnesota in the late 1860s - early 1870s. He is the son of the surveyor and astronmical atlas publisher of the same name Elijah Hinsdale Burritt (1794 - 1838). He was born in New Britain, Connecticut. It is unclear when the bookseller Elijah H. Burritt came to Minnesota, but he was already present and considered a 'leading man' of St. Paul by 1862, having worked as a Clerk of the Supreme Court of Minnesota. That year, he joined as First Assistant an overland expedition from St. Paul, Minnesota to Portland, Oregon, led by Captain James Fisk. Fisk was a vocal proponent of westward expansion and settlement and had been granted an officer's commission by the Union Army and given free rein to protect emigrants settling on the frontier of Minnesota. After this adventure, Burritt was appointed a Clerk of the Sioux Indemnity Commission in St. Paul, which was established following the Dakota War of 1862. His subsequent activities are unclear, but he was active as a publisher and bookseller in the late 1860s - early 1870s, sometimes under his own name, sometimes as 'E. H. Burritt and Co.,' and, from 1871, as 'Burritt and Pease,' which provided stationary and 'sundries' to the state government, among others. Burritt primarily published educational material and works relating to Minnesota, such as maps and emigrants' guides. Burritt was an officer of the Republican Club of Ramsey County and a representative from the county to at least one State Republican Convention.