[1] Shortly after he was born, his family moved to Jamestown, Wisconsin, and settled on a farm where he grew up.

He practiced law for one year in Boscobel, Wisconsin, then moving to Platteville on December 1, 1890.

Burns died on June 15, 1941, while visiting his brother in Galena, Illinois.

[1] In 1898, he entered the Army for two years and served in the Spanish–American War[2] as Captain of Company C of the 4th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment.

[1] He was elected to the Wisconsin State Senate's 16th District (Grant and Iowa Counties) on November 6, 1900 (Republican incumbent Charles H. Baxter was not a candidate), beating Democrat William Synon and Prohibitionist John W. Horsfall;[1] and was re-elected in 1904.