This sepia colored cabinet card shows Jonathan Coleman Burnett (1825-1899). A lawyer from Morristown, Vermont he migrated, in the spring of 1857, to Leavenworth, Kansas. His arrival in the Kansas territory prompted him and seven other Vermonters to organize a "Vermont Colony". The group set out for southeast Kansas, in May of 1857, and founded the town of Mapleton in Bourbon County. The town never developed into a thriving community but Burnett remained in the area. As anti-slavery forces debated the future of the territory, Burnett was chosen, in 1859, as a delegate to the Wyandotte Convention. He represented Bourbon, McGee and Dorn counties. After the convention he continued his career as a public servant by serving as a land office register in Humboldt, and in Ft. Scott. In 1861, Burnett was elected as a Republican to the first Kansas senate from the Ninth District of Bourbon County. Later in life he moved to Lawrence, Kansas to work as a director and land commissioner for the Leavenworth, Lawrence, & Galveston Railroad. He also pursed farming and livestock raising in Russell County. On July 2, 1899, Jonathan Burnett died at the age of 74 in Wichita, Kansas and was buried in Lawrence, Kansas.