He graduated from Brown University in 1838 and the General Theological Seminary in 1841.

[1] Burgess was ordained to the diaconate on November 3, 1842, by Presiding Bishop Alexander Viets Griswold, and to the priesthood on November 1, 1843, by Bishop John Prentiss Kewley Henshaw of Rhode Island.

Between 1854 and 1866 he served as rector St Luke's Church in Portland, Maine.

[3] During a special convention held February 26, 1878, Burgess was elected as the first Bishop of Quincy on the forty fourth ballot.

[5] This article about an American Episcopal or Anglican bishop is a stub.