Robert H. Burton

Robert H. Burton was an enigma. Another native of Granville County, he moved to Lincoln County, began a successful law practice and became one of the county's leading citizens. In 1818, he was appointed a Judge of the Superior Court but after riding the circuit one term, he resigned.1He was elected Treasurer by the legislature by a majority of eight votes over William Mhoon. Burton received 100 votes to Mhoon's 92. He had been recommended by Governor William A. Graham who became so angered with Burton's spurning the job that he wrote, "I saw Treasurer Burton at Lincoln County Court, and although I never felt colder weather, he was in Court all week arguing six penny cases. He is so fond of money that I believe his conscience would take the cramp on a sixpence. As last Session of the Legislature was Resolution Session, they ought to have passed one more: 'Resolved that Rob Burton be compelled to wear a Petty-coat and bed gown the residue of his life and that said garments be made up out of the ragged treasury Bills instead of burning them,'-he is politically dead and d-d too." 2

1 John W. Wheeler, Historical Sketches of North Carolina from 1584-1851 (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co, 1851), 246.

2 J. G. deRoulhac Hamilton, ed., Papers of William A. Graham, Vol. I (Raleigh: State Department of Archives and History, 1957), 199.

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