He is the earliest known sports announcer credited with creating the profession at the Staten Island Athletic Club games in 1884.

[5] Agnes, always a homemaker, lived on Clinton Street in Brooklyn and owned a summer home in Echo Lake, New Jersey.

[7][8] His business entanglements with his uncle found him in front of a magistrate more than once including charges of violating his liquor license for selling alcohol on Sunday.

[9] Ultimately, he landed in his lifelong daytime profession as a broker at the Custom House on Wall Street until his death in 1923.

[16][17][18][19] Taught by his father, Burns played golf all his life, competing regularly in amateur tournaments after his announcing years faded.

Flannery, who captained the New York Lacrosse Club, approached Burns because he was lacking fast runners on the team.

Both he and Flannery were selected to the All-American team to go to England but, neither could make the trip due to their respective business affairs.

Burns proclaimed the forward pass in football had its origins in lacrosse, much to the denouncing of Yale stars, quarterback Harry Beecher and fullback Billy Bull, who attributed it to the great Walter Camp.

Contrary to modern belief, the forward pass got its start long before the 1896 contest between John Heisman's North Carolina Football Team and Pop Warner's Georgia Bulldogs.

[28] He was the chairman of the Track and Race Committee of the New York Division of the League of American Wheelmen which constructed the concrete-paved Manhattan Beach Bicycle Racetrack in 1895 which included banked turns.

The success led to many professional and amateur races at the venue including the establishment of a bicycle-riding academy for women, children and beginners.

In a couple of cases having been engaged as the ring announcer of illegal boxing bouts, he attained a reputation for escaping arrest by the police by outrunning them on his bicycle.

[35][36] Burns staunchly supported Mile-A-Minute Murphy in his quest to show a cyclist could pedal 1 mile in less than 1 minute.

[37] Burns's first involvement came in May as he'd written a letter to the Pennsylvania Railroad to allow Murphy to follow behind a train moving at 60 miles per hour.

[41] A separate account had Burns, sidelined from an athletic event with rheumatism in the winter of 1886, shouting loudly during the games.

[49] When George Dixon defeated England's Fred Johnson in 1892 to become the first ever African-American boxing champion at any weight, Burns was the announcer.

[52] During the "Gentleman" Jim Corbett and Bob Fitzsimmons Heavyweight Championship in 1897 in Carson City, Nevada, a special telegraph was setup in the Lenox Lyceum Theatre in Manhattan which received all the details of the bout.

[54] He became known in the sporting world as the first professional megaphoner, a term commonly used for announcer until public address systems took over athletics in the 1930s.

He announced some of the biggest cyclists of the time including: Jimmy Michael, Arthur Linton, Earl Kiser and Eddie Bald.

At the world's first automobile show held in Madison Square Garden in November 1900, the organizers engaged Burns as the announcer.

[57] In 1894, the management of the New York Giants baseball club leveraged the services of Burns and Jack Adler to inform the crowds in lieu of using a bulletin board at the Polo Grounds.

[67] By the end of 1887, Burns and Flannery had defected and joined the board of the Nassau Athletic Club, where Ebbets was now treasurer.

During the start of the Tariffs of 1894 of Grover Cleveland's second presidency, a never before seen rush brokers trying withdrawal bonded goods from the Custom House.

[76][77][78] His articulate enunciation and clear explanations during events made him a primary choice of organizers along the eastern seaboard for any major affairs.

The foundations of announcing laid by these men led us to folks like Pat Pieper, Red Barber, Bob Sheppard, Vin Scully and Michael Buffer that we know today.

[94] Upon the advice of his long-time friend and attorney, Foster Backus (who was also the president of the Brooklyn Athletic Association), Burns ceased announcing and left the state of New York to avoid subpoena by the prosecutor, William Travers Jerome.

[100] Noted many times, her trial was the most sensational in New York City history with hundreds crowding the courtroom and thousands in front of the Centre Street Court on the day of her release.

[101] Due to Florence's age, 5'8" height, golden hair, big blue eyes, attractive face and shapely figure, she would have been considered strikingly beautiful in a world where the typical woman averaged 5'2" in size.

Burns is interred in the Tulip section of the Cemetery of the Evergreens in Brooklyn with his wife, daughter Florence, Bad Bill Dahlen and many, many others.