Early life and career Born January 14, 1874 in
Sandwich, Massachusetts, on
Cape Cod, Burgess was the son of Caroline F. Haywood and Thornton W. Burgess Sr., a direct descendant of Thomas Burgess, one of the first Sandwich settlers in 1637. Thornton, Sr., died the same year his son was born, and the young Thornton, Jr. was brought up by his mother in Sandwich. They lived in humble circumstances. 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. This habitat became the setting of many stories in which Burgess refers to Smiling Pool and the Old Briar Patch. 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. But he disliked studying business and wanted to be an author. He relocated to
Springfield, Massachusetts, where he accepted a job as an editorial assistant at the Phelps Publishing Company. His first stories were written using the pseudonym "W. B. Thornton". Burgess married Nina Osborne in 1905, but she died in childbirth a year later, leaving him to raise their son alone. It is said that he began writing bedtime stories to entertain his young son, Thornton III. Burgess remarried in 1911; his wife Fannie had two children by a previous marriage. The couple later bought a home in
Hampden, Massachusetts, in 1925 that became Burgess' permanent residence in 1957. His second wife died in August 1950. Burgess returned frequently to Sandwich, which he always claimed as his spiritual home. Many of his childhood experiences and the people he knew there influenced his interest and were the impetus for his concern for wildlife. From 1895 to 1962, Burgess wrote "nearly 900" stories, natural science articles, and poems for magazines, including 201 children's stories for ''
People's Home Journal'' magazine. For over 16 years from May 1913 through the magazine's demise following its final December 1929 issue, Burgess published a children's story in every issue of ''People's Home Journal'' magazine. From 1912 to 1960, without interruption, Burgess wrote his syndicated daily newspaper column (via the
George Matthew Adams Service),
Bedtime Stories.
Radio broadcasts From 1912 to 1960, Burgess also broadcast on the radio. His
Radio Nature League radio series began at
WBZ (AM), then located in
Springfield, in early January 1925. Burgess broadcast the program from the studio at the Hotel Kimball on Wednesday evening at 7:30 p.m. Praised by educators and parents, the program had listeners and members in more than 30 states at its peak. Burgess'
Radio Nature League disbanded briefly in August 1930, but he continued to give radio talks for WBZ concerning
conservation and the humane treatment of animals.
Death He died on June 5, 1965, at the age of 91. His son had died suddenly the year before. ==Awards and accomplishments==