Rev Edwin Otway Burnham (September 24, 1824 – August 1, 1873) was a Congregational minister and missionary. He was born in Ghent, Kentucky, his father died when he was 5 and his mother died the following year. He and his younger sister, Caroline, moved to Madison, New York to live with their grandfather Abner Burnham, a soldier of the American Revolutionary War, but Abner died soon thereafter. Burnham graduated Hamilton College, New York, in 1852 and was a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity. On July 18, 1852 he was ordained, after having been stated supply at Columbus City, Iowa and he became a student at Union Theological Seminary in New York (1852–55). He graduated in 1855 and was licensed as a preacher of the gospel. He was a teacher in Pennington, New Jersey (1855–56), and a Pastor