Charles C Burke has been identified with the petroleum industry since his boy hood, and it is doubtful whether there is any branch of the business to which he has not devoted his inventive powers and natural bent for investigation. His ancestors came to America in the seventeenth century and settled In Massachusetts. He was born in Springfield. Windsor County, Vermont, and received his educational training at the Kimball Union Academy, Meriden, N. H. Prom Meriden, Mr. Burke went to Boston and began his business career there with a wholesale pro vision house. After living in Boston about two years, he went to the Oil Regions, arriving at Titusville. Pa., in the early sixties. Crude petroleum was then being produced In greal abundance. There were, however, few refineries in the country, and few men with practical knowledge of that branch of the business. In order to become proficient in It. he placed himself under the tuition of a well known chemist of the oil fields. After obtaining from him the general methods of refining, he supplemented this course of instruction by sending to Pittsburg for a German chemist whose services he utilized in the manufacture of various products from petroleum. Although he had not then attained his majority. Mr. Burke associated himself with others and secured a factory, which he reconstructed, and to which he added several stills and other improvements Not long afterward this plant was totally destroyed by fire. Not discouraged by this misfortune. Mr. Burke removed to Pittsburg and remained there several years as a refiner. In 1870 he established himself at New York, and be came an owner in an oil refinery on Newtown Creek. This plant was operated successfully under his direct management until about 1883. In that year he was elected President of the Eagle Oil Company with works at Communipaw, N. J. His executive work in connection with the Eagle factory covered a period of two decades. During this time he served for several years as a director of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. He has originated several grades of lubricating oil which are celebrated for their excellent qualities, and has received letters patent for various valuable Im provements in machinery. Mr. Burke is a director of the Fulton Trust Company of New York, having been one of its founders. He is and has been for nearly twenty-five years a director of the Cheseborough Manufacturing Company (Consolidated) of New York. He has served as director, vice president and president of the New York Produce Exchange, and is also treasurer of the New England Society, and a member of the Union League Club of New York. Mr. Burke has been married twice; in 1872 to Miss Elsie P. Ely, a daughter of the late Abner L. Ely, of New York, and in 1886 to Miss Elizabeth S. Cass.