Peter Bouck Borst
| Peter Bouck Borst | |
|---|---|
| Born |
June 23, 1826 Schoharie County, New York |
| Died | April 24, 1882 Luray, Virginia |
| Cause of death | apoplexy |
| Residence | Luray, Virginia |
| Spouse(s) | Isabella C. Almond |
| Children | Charles Manning (1851–1923), Cornelia B. (1855–1939), John William (ca. 1858–?) |
| Parent(s) | Peter I. Borst and Catherine B. Borst |
Peter Bouck Borst (23 June 1826 – 24 April 1882) was an active participant in the mid-19th century development of Page County, Virginia, serving as a lawyer, county delegate to Virginia's Secession Convention of 1861, and president of the Shenandoah Valley Railroad.
Borst was born and raised in Schoharie County, New York, the second son of U.S. Congressman Peter I. Borst and Catherine B. Borst.
In 1847, he relocated from New York to Luray, Virginia, where he opened practice as a lawyer. Within a few years of his arrival, he met Isabella C. Almond, marrying her on 1 April 1851. Almond was a daughter of Edmund "Mann" Almond, a prominent Luray merchant and slaveholder (owning seven slaves in 1850, and five slaves in 1860).
Soon after the arrival of the couple's son, Charles Manning, in 1851, Borst began construction on a new family home, "Aventine Hall", on a high point on the west end of Luray and within sight of the county court house. Borst had designed the house when he was 20, without consulting with any architects. Aventine Hall was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.
In 1852, Borst began a long career as Commonwealth's Attorney for Page County, maintaining his office in the North wing of the courthouse. By 1860, he had accumulated considerable property and popularity in the county. He owned a farm by the mid-1850s and later built a three-story tannery that would be known as "one of the most flourishing establishments in the county" in antebellum Luray.
Borst was selected as Page County's delegate to the Virginia Convention of 1861 and was one of only four convention delegates (along with Raphael Morgan Conn and Samuel Croudson Williams of Shenandoah County, and Robert H. Turner of Warren County), from among the eighteen delegates from the Shenandoah Valley, to side with secession in the April 4 vote. At that time, sentiments in the Shenandoah Valley were much more Unionist than pro-secession. When he voted again in favor of secession on April 17, he was among the majority vote of the Shenandoah Valley delegates, only two (Edmund Pendleton of Berkeley County and John Francis Lewis of Rockingham County) voting against. In the proceedings, Borst was quoted as seeing his adopted county as "fully alive to the crisis, and prepared to meet it, come what may."
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