Frederick Phineas Burr was born on November 6, 1847, in Northbridge, Massachusetts, to Albert and Sarah Burr. His father was a farmer who owned $2,300 of real estate and $300 of personal property by 1860. He grew up and attended school in Northbridge, and by the early 1860s, he was working as a farmer.
He enlisted in the Union army on December 26, 1863, and he mustered in as a private in Company E of the 4th Massachusetts Cavalry on January 27, 1864. According to his service records, he was 5 feet, 6 inches tall, with auburn hair and hazel eyes. The regiment took part in the siege of Petersburg and the Appomattox campaign. He mustered out on November 14, 1865.
He returned to Northbridge after the war and resumed his work as a farmer. He married Adelaide Crossman on June 12, 1866, and their daughter Ida was born around 1871. They lived in Sutton, Massachusetts, and by 1870, he owned $1,900 of real estate and $900 of personal property. They moved to Bennington, Kansas, in the 1870s.
He applied for a federal pension in July 1890 and eventually secured one. By 1910, he was living in his daughter Ida’s household in Lawrence, Kansas. He died on October 18, 1923, in Winsted, Connecticut.