Time has been told by the passing of the sun since history has been told. This slate sundial has a date of 1768 on it. Its history says that Sarah Catherine “Sallie” Moomaw (1857-1925) married Benton Dolphus Painter (1856-1926) on September 17, 1885. They lived in a log cabin in Haymakertown in the Mt. Union section of Botetourt County. Mrs. Painter found this sundial while digging a flower bed near the chimney of their home in 1888. H.M. Painter donated it to the Botetourt History Museum and it is displayed upstairs in the new museum. Above it on the wall is a framed group of three photographs donated by Patricia Painter Simmons. The top picture shows their log home. The middle picture shows B.D. Painter tending his sheep and the bottom picture shows Mrs. Painter in front of their chicken coop.
