June 1, 2026

The Brownsburg Museum

By Joe Stinnett

The Brownsburg Museum is a small museum in tiny Brownsburg, Virginia, a historic community near Raphine in the Shenandoah Valley. I was invited for a private tour and it is world-class. I was blown away by the quality of the displays and the information and the photos and the artifacts, which included an old church pew from a church where a local emigrant worshipped. A powerful experience to just touch that pew while viewing ghostly images of old slave dwellings, photographed by Gesche Würfel.

Emigrants to Liberia from Lexington and Rockbridge County often passed through Lynchburg as they began their journey to ports in Hampton Roads or Baltimore, sometimes sharing news of Liberia with Lynchburg residents as they passed through. I don’t know if that included William and Patricia Halliburton and their children, but one of the most fascinating objects the Brownsburg Museum has is a letter from William Halliburton, written back to his father from Liberia in 1866, found during renovation of an old house in Brownsburg.

thebrownsburgmuseum.org

Brownsburg Museum exhibit panel titled “Afrika — From Brownsburg to Liberia,” with William Halliburton’s 1866 letter, a map of the 4,788-mile journey, and the words “These people matter to me.” — The museum’s “From Brownsburg to Liberia” exhibit traces the 4,788-mile journey to Liberia, including William Halliburton’s 1866 letter home to his father.

Brownsburg Museum exhibit panel titled “1860 — The color of money,” documenting the economy of slavery in Rockbridge County, with tobacco samples and a runaway-reward notice. — “The color of money” documents how the economy of slavery took hold in Rockbridge County in the decades before emancipation.

An old dark wooden church pew displayed against a blue wall hung with five framed photographs of former slave dwellings. — The old church pew, where a local emigrant once worshipped, displayed beneath Gesche Würfel’s ghostly photographs of former slave dwellings.