A First Marshall of Harvard College as elected by his Harvard class. He died age 24 of typhoid fever while at Harvard Law School. He was descended of Puritan stock that first arrived in Boston in 1630. He was known to be alert, honest and of great muscular strength. This is reflected in his accomplishments as an athlete at Harvard. However, he was also had a lifelong fragile susceptibility to disease and illness. He was schooled in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, until age nine when he went to Berlin, Germany, with his parents for two years. His father Heman M. Burr, Harvard 1877, then directed his son’s preparatory work for eventual acceptance to Harvard. Burr began athletics at age eight as the regular catcher on a boys baseball team—he earned the position because he would not flinch when catching behind a swinging batter. In 1902 he secured enough points to enter college with credit and in 1903 he spent a year with Noble and Green’s School in Boston. There he was on the football and baseball teams, and was a shot-putter on the track team. Despite the heavy involvement in prep sports, he past his final exams and was admitted to Harvard. However, he first spent a year in Europe with his parents as they deemed him too young to enter college. He contracted fever in Holland and returned to Boston too ill to enter college in the fall of 1904. He then went to Phillips-Andover Academy in 1905, and finally entered Harvard in the fall of 1905. He demonstrated his athletic s a starter at the guard position for the Harvard football team for four years from 1905 to 1908 and also did the punting and place-kicking for the team. He was selected as a first-team All-American in 1906 and as the captain of the 1908 Harvard football team. Burr also competed for two years on Harvard's track team, one year on the baseball team and one year on the tennis team, as well as rowed crew for a year. Burr was not as accomplished in football as he wanted to be. His frequent illnesses kept him from staying in condition. However, he overcame this handicap and excelled on the football field when he was elected team captain his senior year. Sadly for Burr, he could not play in the all-important Harvard-Yale game due to another bout of debilitating illness. Burr was also an exceptional scholar, receiving a scholarship his senior year and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with distinction in 1909. He was highly regarded by the Harvard administration and faculty, as well as his classmates, for his integrity, generous spirit, attainment of high standards, and his strong morality. His classmates elected him as First Marshall in his senior year, a great honor. Burr entered Harvard Law the fall of 1909. In 1910, he became the chief lineman coach at Harvard while in his second year as a law student. In early October 1910, he became ill with typhoid fever and died at Des Brisay Hospital after his third relapse. Burr's funeral was held at the Appleton Chapel in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and all recitations at Harvard were suspended for one hour on the day of his funeral. In 1914, Burr's friends established the Francis H. Burr Award in his honor. The award was given each year to a senior, selected by the Dean of Harvard College and the Chairman of the Athletic Committee, who "combines as nearly as possible Burr's remarkable qualities of character, leadership, scholarship, and athletic ability.”

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