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Several important historic objects were given to the Paxton House Historical Society during 2022.
The items were donated by descendants of Elisha Paxton and his wife, Margaret McNutt Paxton.
Now on display at Paxton House, located inside Glen Maury Park, the objects will be featured during an open house on Saturday, Feb. 25, from 2 to 4 p.m.
These objects are family heirlooms that have been handed down across multiple generations. The furnishings provide inspiration for exploring history through stories and through primary source materials. Their presence in Paxton House gives visitors a tangible experience with objects important to Rockbridge people from the past.
About The House
The historic Paxton House, completed around 1831 for the Elisha Paxton family, is a well-preserved example of pre-Civil War vernacular architecture of Rockbridge County.
The modest sized brick mansion overlooking the Maury River was built, according to family legend, at the insistence of Elisha Paxton’s mother-in-law, Rachel Grigsby McNutt.
Rachel McNutt wanted her daughter Margaret to have a brick house as fine as the houses of Margaret’s sisters
AT FAR RIGHT is an English made sideboard bought by William “Blind” Paxton and his wife Jane Grigsby Paxton in 1794. William, who owned a farm south of the James River in Rockbridge County, was Elisha Paxton’s cousin. AT IMMEDIATE RIGHT is a sofa once owned by Elisha Paxton’s grandson, Matthew White Paxton.
(Elizabeth McNutt Hamilton and Martha McNutt Glasgow, who lived nearby).
Elisha and Margaret Paxton lived in a log cabin for the first 20 years of their marriage. So, in order to keep the peace, Elisha Paxton delivered on the brick house request.
The Paxton House brickwork, doors, windows, fireplace mantels and ornamental woodwork provide a sampler of the finer features of brick homes built in Rockbridge County during the first half of the 19th century.
The Paxton House is the only publicly owned house of its kind in the county, having been purchased by the city of Buena Vista in 1968. The house is managed by the Paxton House Historical Society, a nonprofit, volunteerpowered organization which restored the building for community use. Today it hosts private events on the site, as well as public programs for social and educational purposes.
While the house is not a museum, it does contain period furnishings and educational displays that explain the history of the site, the building, and the people who lived there over time.
Stories To Tell And Mysteries To Solve
An 1831 piano, an enormous wardrobe, and a clock with European connections are among the items with interesting stories that have trickled into the Paxton House from generous donors. Some items have Paxton family connections, some were made in Rockbridge County, and some are simply functional pieces or reproductions.
During 2022, additional furnishings of historic significance were received from descendants of Elisha and Margaret Paxton. These new items provide rich opportunities to explore and engage with local history.
A Missing Portrait, Last Seen in Tennessee When the portrait of Elisha Paxton was given to the historical society in 2011, evidence of a second portrait was discovered.
A portrait of Margaret Paxton and only daughter, Rachel, likely a mate to Elisha’s portrait, was documented online in an archive called The Tennessee Portrait Project. A search through The Tennessee Portrait Project’s index turned up a clue -- another Paxton portrait: Mrs. Charles Paxton Oates.
Fast forward 11 years, and an effort to learn the whereabouts of Margaret and Rachel’s portrait began. A review of Paxton family genealogy records, online searches of obituaries, newspaper articles, and potential mailing addresses of living descendants paid off. Descendants of Charles Paxton Oates (related to Elisha and Margaret Paxton through their second son, Alexander McNutt Paxton) were contacted by mail. They still had the old Paxton portrait and, remarkably, they were interested in donating it to the Paxton House Historical Society.
Shipment of the portrait from Memphis back to Rockbridge County was arranged in the fall of 2022. The portrait of Margaret and Rachel now keeps watch over the east parlor of Paxton House, thanks to the generosity of Louise Oates Dearborn and her siblings, especially Thomas Oates and his wife Carol, who had the portrait in their Memphis home.
It is fascinating to see the faces of Elisha, Margaret and Rachel Paxton in these portraits. If only they could answer our questions: When and under what circumstances were these portraits made? Are these the portraits mentioned in Elisha Paxton’s 1866 will, and, were copies made and distributed throughout the family, as Elisha requested?
Furniture And Silver - Back From New York In June 2022, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Owen Paxton traveled from New York to Rockbridge County for a family reunion. While in the area, they made an appointment to visit the Paxton House, to deliver an important gift: silver spoons that, according SARAH PLIMPTON AND ROBERT PAXTON (above) donated the silver spoons, sofa and sideboard seen on the preceding page, as well as five cane-bottomed chairs (one of which is seen at right) and Zachariah Johnston’s chest of drawers (seen at far right). The chairs once belonged to E.F. Paxton (above left), a Confederate general who would be killed at the battle of Chancellorsville 160 years ago this spring.
to family stories, once belonged to Robert’s great-great-grandparents: Elisha and Margaret Paxton.
Robert and his wife Sarah also arranged for delivery of several antique furniture pieces from their home in New York to Paxton House in December 2022. The items are Paxton family pieces, but two pieces also have connections to other early Rockbridge families: the Johnstons and the Grigsbys. The silver spoons, a chest of drawers, a sofa, a sideboard, and five special cane-bottom chairs are now on display at Paxton House.
Mrs. Paxton’s Silver
Among the shiniest objects at Paxton House, the spoons believed to be Margaret McNutt Paxton’s are engraved with the initials MP.
Silent, elegant, and heavy, these spoons were important to family descendants, handed down across generations, used and admired, again and again. Now that they are back in Rockbridge County, the story of the spoons can be shared with a wider audience.
Early research suggests these spoons were made by Robert & William Wilson, Philadelphia silversmiths. Their makers’ mark, on the reverse side of the spoons, was used from approximately 1825 to 1876. Items made by Philadelphia craftsmen were often sold in Richmond and other large southern market towns. So how did Margaret Paxton get these spoons? Are these the same spoons mentioned in daughter Rachel Paxton’s 1865 estate sale and in Elisha Paxton’s 1866 will?
Zachariah Johnston’s Chest Of Drawers Zachariah Johnston came to live in Rockbridge County in 1790. He was an impressive man. He had been a Revolutionary War officer, and, while a member of Virginia’s House of Delegates, he championed passage of a bill to establish freedom of religion.
His splendid Stone House, built in 1797, still stands near the intersection of Woods Creek and Ross Road. His descendants include Robert Paxton (through the 1854 marriage of E.F. Paxton to Elizabeth Hannah White).
The chest of drawers from Zachariah’s Stone House, now resides in the bed chamber of Paxton House. Many hands have touched this furniture over the years. What did they store in all these drawers and why does every drawer have a keyhole?
The Sofa Of Elisha’s Grandson Probably at least 100 years newer than Zachariah Johnston’s chest of drawers, a small crimson upholstered sofa, once owned by Matthew White Paxton and his wife, Mary Louisa Hopkins Paxton, is also displayed in the bed chamber at Paxton House. It provides a tangible connection to the post-Civil War generations of Elisha Paxton’s family in Rockbridge.
How many Paxtons took a quick nap on this sofa over the years? Did they dream of the past, or of the future?
A Sideboard First Enjoyed By Jane Grigsby Paxton William “Blind” Paxton and his wife, Jane Grigsby Paxton, celebrated the birth of twin daughters in 1794, and, according to family records, they also bought an English- made sideboard that year.
William, a Revolutionary War veteran who owned a farm south of the James River in Rockbridge, was Elisha Paxton’s cousin. William’s wife, Jane Grigsby Paxton, was the aunt of Elisha’s wife, Margaret McNutt Paxton.
Somehow, the 1794 sideboard made its way to descendants of Elisha and Margaret and now it resides in the Paxton House. Of grand proportion and in the popular style of Hepplewhite, the sideboard is suitable for storing silver spoons and other items used to set an impressive table.
Did William and Jane ever invite Elisha and Margaret to their house? Did Margaret admire Jane’s sideboard? According to family records, they all attended the Falling Spring Presbyterian Church at one time.
Five Cane-Bottomed Chairs – Once at Thorn Hill E.F. Paxton and his wife, Elizabeth Hannah White Paxton, had not been living at Thorn Hill (south of Lexington) very long before the start of the Civil War in 1861. In May of 1863, E.F. Paxton would lose his life at the battle of Chancellorsville.
In 1866, an inventory of E.F. Paxton’s personal property mentions five cane-bottom chairs. The same chairs were handed down through the descendants of E.F. Paxton (Elisha Paxton’s fifth son), and then donated to Paxton House. Gracefully proportioned and decorated with a floral pattern worn away by time, the chairs are a reminder of the beauty and fragility of life.
Who used these chairs at Thorn Hill? Were they made in Lexington?
- Please stop by Paxton House on Saturday, Feb. 25, between 2 and 4 p.m. to see up close these items from Rockbridge past. You may have questions about these historic furnishings. The Paxton House Historical Society volunteers will try to provide answers.
For more information, contact the Paxton House Historical Society at (540) 404-1081 or bvpaxtonhouse@ gmail.com.
