Mahlon Burwell was an aristocrat by North American standards. He was descended from two families of Burwells who landed in the American colonies in the early 1600s: Major Lewis Burwell settled in Virginia and John Burwell in Milford Connecticut.  Mahlon became the right-hand man and close friend of the Irish aristocrat, the Lake Erie Baron, Colonel Thomas Talbot.

Mahlon was born to Adam Burwell and his wife Sarah on Long Island, New York, on February 18, 1783. Adam was a Loyalist who moved to Bertie Township near Fort Erie before 1797. He made sure that his son Mahlon had a good education, which in those days included practical subjects such as land surveying.

In those days, surveyors used a primitive tool called a theodolite. Having established the correct direction of the line to be surveyed, the surveyor had his assistants mark the line with surveying poles. Then chainmen with their 66-foot chains would walk along the line, using the chain to measure distance and directing axemen who would clear the line as much as possible and blaze marks on trees to indicate lot lines.

In 1809, with backing from Col. Talbot, Burwell received a commission as Deputy Surveyor for Upper Canada and in the same year married Sarah Hawn. His first job as Deputy Surveyor was to  survey the Talbot Road from Dunwich Township (Port Talbot)  to Middleton Township (Delhi).

When he started surveying, Burwell was paid seven shillings and sixpence per day but in 1819 this was changed to a payment in land of 4½% of all lands surveyed. This led to Burwell holding large plots of land in widely separated areas. Besides owning land in what became Port Burwell, he also had land at Burwell's Corners, and a huge parcel south of Delaware and the Longwoods Road.

In 1811, he was instructed by Surveyor General Ridout to survey a road from Westminster Township (London) to Kettle Creek Village (St Thomas) and to survey a line from the west edge of Dunwich Township to Essex County. Quite a handful! For some reason, Ridout was at odds with Col. Talbot and this now extended to Burwell, so he was apoplectic when Burwell changed the Westminster survey without permission. After surveying from Westminster to Five Stakes, now Talbotville, Burwell veered west to survey a new line parallel to the Talbot Road. This line was called the Back Street and is now Highway 3 west of St Thomas.

In 1811, again with support from Col. Talbot, he was appointed Registrar of Deeds for the County of Middlesex, which at that time also included what became the County of Elgin, where Talbot ruled. The next year, he began to survey the Talbot Road west from Dunwich to Howard Township.

At the onset of the War of 1812, Burwell was an officer in the militia, which was called out by Col. Talbot in the face of an attack by the Americans. He had to suspend his survey of the Talbot Road for the duration of the war. He was captured in Port Talbot in 1814 by the traitor Andrew Westbrook and sent as a prisoner to Ohio. In return for a partial parole that allowed him to move freely within limits, he promised not to escape, a promise that he kept where many others on both sides reneged. Eventually he received a full parole and returned home to take no further part in the conflict.

In 1816, he tried to resume his survey of the Talbot Road but discovered that all the directions he had received from Ridout had been destroyed so he had to wait until they could be recreated. Other surveys he performed were: the Middle Road in Howard, the Talbot Road west to Essex, the eastern end of the Middle Road in Orford Township, the town plot for London, and a trial line from near Wellesley in Wilmot Township through Monkton and Blyth to Lake Huron.  After Burwell's survey of the town plot for London, Ridout was able to extract a little revenge for Burwell's failure to follow orders on the Westminster survey by naming the main street through the town plot for himself and relegating Talbot Street to a "back street".

Burwell died in 1846 and is buried in St Stephen's Churchyard in Burwell's Corners.

Graves of Mahlon and Sarah Burwell