On Monday, July 9, Vermont lost one of its beloved sons—an ardent and loyal defender of the state’s material culture and historical record, as well as a generous and resourceful benefactor who routinely gifted Vermont institutions with the treasures he collected. Born in 1934, J. Brooks Buxton was a seventh-generation Vermonter who grew up with his older brothers, Freeman and Ronnie, and his younger sister, Carlynn, in the old millhouse at Chittenden Mills on the Browns River in the village of Jericho where his father was once employed with the E.W. Bailey Grain Company. An avid skier, Buxton was a member of the University of Vermont Alpine Ski Team and graduated in 1956 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. He then attended the University of Virginia School of Law before embarking on his career, first in New York and then overseas. For more than four decades he lived in Beirut, London, Riyadh, Tripoli, Tunis, and Dubai while working in finance and then later, in the international oil and gas industry. Buxton became deeply engaged in the history of each place in which he has made his home and was fascinated by the art and artifacts that reflected their culture. With his extensive knowledge of history and multifaceted interest in the arts, he began collecting fine and decorative arts, as well as early 19th-century photographs of the regions in which he lived and traveled. In addition to Buxton’s extensive Middle East acquisitions, when living in London he built a distinguished collection of modern British art. But that was not his sole extracurricular pursuit in the United Kingdom. After a rare non-traumatic spinal cord injury in the 1990s left his lower body paralyzed, Buxton grew aware of the challenges of public access and became an advocate for accessibility, lobbying Parliament and contributing to spinal-cord-injury research during his time in London. When he retired as president of Conoco Arabia Inc. and director of Conoco Middle East Ltd. in 2003, Buxton returned to his beloved Jericho in a beautiful home designed by his niece, Lori Buxton Myrick, with vistas of the Winooski River and the hills beyond. Since his return to Vermont he has focused assiduously on assembling an extensive collection of paintings depicting the agricultural and built landscape of Vermont from the 18th to 20th century, as well as select pieces by contemporary Vermont artists. It is an invaluable record of the…
On Monday, July 9, Vermont lost one of its beloved sons—an ardent and loyal defender of the state’s material culture and historical record, as well as a generous and resourceful benefactor who routinely gifted Vermont institutions with the treasures he collected. Born in 1934, J. Brooks Buxton was a seventh-generation Vermonter who grew up with his older brothers, Freeman and Ronnie, and his younger sister, Carlynn, in the old millhouse at Chittenden Mills on the Browns River in the village of Jericho where his father was once employed with the E.W. Bailey Grain Company. An avid skier, Buxton was a member of the University of Vermont Alpine Ski Team and graduated in 1956 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. He then attended the University of Virginia School of Law before embarking on his career, first in New York and then overseas. For more than four decades he lived in Beirut, London, Riyadh, Tripoli, Tunis, and Dubai while working in finance and then later, in the international oil and gas industry. Buxton became deeply engaged in the history of each place in which he has made his home and was fascinated by the art and artifacts that reflected their culture. With his extensive knowledge of history and multifaceted interest in the arts, he began collecting fine and decorative arts, as well as early 19th-century photographs of the regions in which he lived and traveled. In addition to Buxton’s extensive Middle East acquisitions, when living in London he built a distinguished collection of modern British art. But that was not his sole extracurricular pursuit in the United Kingdom. After a rare non-traumatic spinal cord injury in the 1990s left his lower body paralyzed, Buxton grew aware of the challenges of public access and became an advocate for accessibility, lobbying Parliament and contributing to spinal-cord-injury research during his time in London. When he retired as president of Conoco Arabia Inc. and director of Conoco Middle East Ltd. in 2003, Buxton returned to his beloved Jericho in a beautiful home designed by his niece, Lori Buxton Myrick, with vistas of the Winooski River and the hills beyond. Since his return to Vermont he has focused assiduously on assembling an extensive collection of paintings depicting the agricultural and built landscape of Vermont from the 18th to 20th century, as well as select pieces by contemporary Vermont artists. It is an invaluable record of the…