Reuben Burdine was born in Virginia in about 1789. A veteran of the War of 1812, he worked as a clerk in the U.S. War Department for over two decades. In the late 1830s and early 1840s he helped process Revolutionary War pension claims for the U.S. pension office. He later moved to Missouri, where he resided as a farmer. He died in Burdine, Missouri in 1864.