Their history is no mystery

Lifetimes of family genealogy records, artifacts and heirlooms fill the home of the John and Peggy Burton and tell the story of how they came to be at Harrison Crossroad Loop in Rockingham County.

The Burton Home was opened to the public this past Sunday in an event sponsored by the Rockingham County Historical Museum and Archives, the Eden Preservation Society and the Eden Historical Museum. The tour was also opened to include the grounds which hold a farm house, country store and a variety of classic cars and artifacts.

The tour started in the parlor where family photos, a vast collection of clocks and musical objects greeted guests. Several of the clocks found throughout the home include French prayer clocks, a wag-on-the-wall clock and a clock that once belonged to the governor of Illinois and dates back to 1830. It once hung in the Illinois state house before the Burtons purchased it from the governor’s 95-year-old granddaughter in 1967.

Sunday’s tour focused mainly on the Burton’s clock collection, musical objects, family photos and textile collections. Peggy said they are very familiar with opening their home to the public.

“This is at least the 15^th time we’ve done it,” she said. “We started Christmas home tours in almost all the churches we served, and we started one at Main Street in Reidsville. We’ve done at least three to four tours with them.”

Another stop on the tour was the den, where most of the Burton’s Indian artifact collection is housed. Both John and Peggy spent three years between 1965 and 1968 on the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation working with the Quechan, also known as the Yuma Indians.

John served as the minister of their all-Indian Methodist Church and director of the Indian Mission that served the entire reservation with public programs like showers and child care. The artifacts include works made by their friends on the reservation and cradle boards that were made by a Yuma grandmother for her grandchildren.

John is a retired United Methodist Minister and Peggy is a retired high school English teacher. They have three children and four grandchildren. He currently serves as the president of the Rockingham County Historical Society Museum and Archives and is vice-president of the Eden Preservation Society Museum Board.

Their home was built in 1895 after John’s maternal great-grandfather William Barnett Moore sold 202 acres to John and Emma Burton, his paternal grandparents, for $600.

John inherited the house and 17 acres from his father in 1982. The house was renovated by the Burtons in 1995 to remove the antebellum log house behind the home, restore the portion built in 1895 by John’s grandparents and to build the current back portion of the house.

John said he’s been collecting for 50 years since he was a teenager and bought his first Ford Model T Roadster for $7. He said he drove it for around 6 months and sold it for $15, doubling his profits.

When asked why he likes sharing his home with the public, he said, “I enjoy sharing what I collect with other people, because there’s no fun in owning something if you can’t share it with somebody else.”