When I first moved to West Virginia, I was studying Google Maps, looking for places worth visiting. I saw one marked as Peter Burr Home, and I wondered if he was connected to Arron Burr, and yes, he was. Peter Burr, Jr, was his cousin, and they shared similar political views. There are three generations of Peter Burrs who owned the land. Jr lived his whole life there; his father, Sr, started it, and Jr’s son sold the farm and went west to Ohio.
This site is part of the Washington Heritage Trail. See here for more information on the homesite.
The area is located at the end of the road, hidden behind an office park in Shenandoah Junction. There are no signs, just look at the maps and you will see it. The parking is in an old field.
George gets his likeness on the kiosk. I snickered just a bit. I don’t think I had seen a painting of George when he was young – he rode for Lord Fairfax as a teen and young adult across today’s Jefferson and Berkley Counties in the Eastern Panhandle of WV. Fairfax, who was in charge of handing out land, and from whom Burr Sr got the land in 1751.
While the house is gated off with fencing, the property is open to walking.
The springhouse and the home.
Three generations lived here.
Our friend Colonel Mosby, the dashing Gray Ghost, was in the Civil War.
The train tracks go just behind the property, and you can see the lights twinkling in the trees. It is the line that goes through Shenandoah Junction and heads for Harper’s Ferry, WV.
We kept walking and came to an old garden that desperately needs to be tended to.
The flowers, though, made it beautiful.
What remains of the old site is very small compared to what it was years ago, but it is a quiet spot when the trains are gone. It is beautiful to walk here, in the fields.
As you wind around, the old barn is there.
Outside of the house is the outdoor oven, which is still used to bake bread.
The spring house to the right. The path runs alongside it and then returns to the field used for parking.
It’s free to visit, a quiet place to lose oneself in for a few moments, and see how life was once. It is a treasure to the area.
~Sarah