As a youth, he worked tending cows, picking trailing arbutus (mayflowers) or berries, shipping water lilies from local ponds, selling candy, and trapping muskrats.

William C. Chipman, one of his employers, lived on Discovery Hill Road, a wildlife habitat of woodland and wetland.

[1] Graduating from Sandwich High School in 1891, Burgess briefly attended a business college in Boston from 1892 to 1893, living in Somerville, Massachusetts, at that time.

The characters in the Old Mother West Wind series include Peter Rabbit (known briefly as Peter Cottontail), Jimmy Skunk, Sammy Jay, Bobby Raccoon, Little Joe Otter, Grandfather Frog, Billy Mink, Jerry Muskrat, Spotty the Turtle, Old Mother West Wind, and her Merry Little Breezes.

[1] For the next 50 years, Burgess steadily wrote books that were published around the world in many languages, including French, Gaelic, German, Italian, Spanish, and Swedish.

[5] From 1912 to 1960, without interruption, Burgess wrote his syndicated daily newspaper column (via the George Matthew Adams Service), Bedtime Stories.

[6] In 1960, Burgess published his last book, Now I Remember, Autobiography of an Amateur Naturalist, depicting memories of his early life in Sandwich as well as his career highlights.

The Thornton W. Burgess Society operates the Green Briar Nature Center in East Sandwich, Massachusetts.