Robert C. Burkholder
Robert Calhoun Burkholder was a Virginia architect, Confederate soldier, and one of Campbell County, Virginia's three delegates in the Virginia General Assembly when it resumed after Congressional Reconstruction.
Early and family life
Burkholder was born in Lee County, Virginia, on June 3, 1826, to James Burkholder and his wife, the former Mary Newton.On November 20, 1852, he married Mary Elizabeth Crumpton. They had ten children, of whom eight survived to adulthood, according to the 1900 census. Their sons included: Robert S., William, Richard and Francis John. Their daughters who survived childhood included Belle, Kate, Sallie, Mary Jo Burkholder Harrison and Adna.
Career
By 1850, Burkholder had become a carpenter in Lynchburg, and was one of six young carpenters living with master carpenter Alfred Taylor and his family.Two years later, he married his wife, but soon moved with his young family to Wytheville, Virginia. His father-in-law persuaded him to return to Lynchburg, and gave him a lot that he had purchased on Daniel's Hill to build a home on. By 1860, Burkholder owned two male and two female slaves who lived with the family in Lynchburg.
Within a month after Virginia declared its secession in the American Civil War, Burkholder enlisted as a private in the Lynchburg Light artillery. Later, he was assigned duty as a hospital steward in the city and promoted to corporal on February 28, 1862. He was discharged as overage on August 8, 1862.
After war ended, Burkholder remained in Lynchburg, and was elected as one of Campbell County's three delegates to the first session of the Virginia General Assembly after Congressional Reconstruction ended. The other delegates were Conservative Democrats John W. Daniel and his father-in-law Rufus Murrell. Daniel also represented creditors of Crumpton who sued Burkholder and other Crumpton relatives because Crumpton had died with debts but without finishing real estate transfer paperwork. Nonetheless, Burkholder finished the Y-shaped house by 1875, and it remains a historic structure in the Daniel's Hill Historic District today. The Virginia Supreme Court in 1872 threw out the case against the husband of Crumpton's daughter Una, and in 1878 decided that the Cabell Street house belonged to Burkholder, on equitable grounds because he had so improved the property.
Death and legacy
By the 1900 census, Burkholder farmed outside Lynchburg in Forest, Bedford County, Virginia. He lived with his wife of 48 years, as well as daughter-in-law Minna E. Burkholder and grandchildren Willie, Edward, Napier and Minna. His son Richard lived and farmed nearby with his own family. In 1910, the widower Burkholder lived with his unmarried daughters Kate B. and Edna A. and granddaughter Sarah ; that census also indicated that he continued to do odd jobs as a laborer and that their house was rented. He died of nephritis in 1914 and was buried in Lynchburg's Spring Hill cemetery.Many of the Victorian structures Burkholder designed and built remain in Lynchburg's historic districts today, including 3 in the Daniel's Hill district alone.