In the early 1800s in the little sleepy town of Rogersville, Alabama resided one of its earliest settlers and American Revolutionary War veteran, Samuel Burney, Sr. He and others from the North Carolina backcountry volunteered in the fall of 1778 under Colonel John Sevier. He and his company, which were mounted riflemen, initially marched to Charleston, SC where the British held control of the city. They scouted out the area and were in charge of being a buffer between the British and the locals who were loyal to the British Crown. He was discharged in the fall of 1779 and then volunteered again a few months later in December 1779 under the command of Colonel Isaac Shelby with similar duties. He was discharged a year later in 1780. He would later go on to claim a pension in 1832 as a Private in the North Carolina Militia.

He was born in Guliford County, North Carolina in 1763 to Irish Immigrants. Shortly after the Revolutionary War he with the rest of his mother's family moved to South Carolina where he live until 1806. He then moved to Rutherford County, Tennessee and lived about two years. He then moved into what was then called Double Heads reserve in Lauderdale County, Alabama lived there about three years before being forced out between 1810-1811. He would make his next home in Giles County, Tennessee until 1817. Records show he went to Huntsville, AL to the Land Sales in 1818 and purchased land along First Creek just west of Rogersville, known as Burney Creek until the 1830s. In 2014, Rep. Lynn Greer sponsored a House Joint Resolution signed by the Governor which designated the bridge over First Creek, the Samuel Burney Bridge.

Burney died March 31, 1849 in Lauderdale County. Many locals believed that he is buried in an unmarked grave in Liberty Cemetery, two blocks west of downtown Rogersville.