Pendleton County Historical Museum

The Pendleton County Historical Museum tells the story of Pendleton County, a small and vibrant community between the two Virginias. Opened in 2009, the museum is built upon the Boggs House, the oldest known house in the county. With the goal of preserving and making local history accessible to the public, the museum preserves more than 1,000 artifacts and documents on display and in archival storage. Most items in the collection come from the estate of local historian Grace Dyer, who bequeathed the house to the Pendleton County Historical Society, an organization dedicated to local history.

The Pendleton County Historical Museum was founded upon the Boggs House, the oldest known house in Pendleton County. Built from logs in 1758, it was originally located three miles north of Franklin and used as a frontier fort. In the early 1800s, after the need for defense passed, logs from the fort were moved to its present location and turned into a dwelling. In the 1870s, the log walls were covered with weatherboarding and a separate kitchen and porch were added.

Several families occupied the house through the years and in 1904 it became the home of Gordon and Elsie Byrd Boggs. Boggs authored several books and articles on county and local history. In 1926, she was a leader in the formation of the Pendleton County Historical Society. In 2008, her daughter, Grace Dyer, bequeathed the house and its contents to the Historical Society for use as a museum to display items of county history and to further the research and preservation of the history of Pendleton County. In keeping with her wishes the Museum was opened in 2009.

Exhibits include part of the original log walls of the fort, primitive tools, furniture from the 19th and early 20th centuries, Civil War artifacts related to Pendleton County, World War II artifacts and uniforms worn by local servicemen, county folk arts, and a collection of county quilts and woven coverlets made the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Hedrick, Eric. Boggs House Museum, Pendleton County Historical Society Website. Accessed February 28th 2022. http://www.pchswv.com/museum/.