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The William Bethel Hill House, 120 Holbrook Avenue
In 1907, Mathew Pate Jordan sold to William Bethel Hill an undeveloped portion of his property at 130 Holbrook Avenue. Mr. Hill was born October 18th, 1871, a native of Greensboro, North Carolina. He married Bessie West Miller in 1904. William’s father, William H. Hill was a partner in the foundation and establishment of Dan Valley Mills on the northside bank of the Dan River. William, Jr. became secretary-treasurer of the firm upon the passing of his father, soon after which appointment he became vice-president and served the company for twenty-five years. He was also vice-president of Piedmont Mills in Lynchburg, and later in his career he organized the Vansco…
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Part 2: Nanzeta, Prince of Tibet
At the outset, I want to give some necessary credit to David Corp, who, during his time as president of the Danville Historical Society, covered this story before I did and since that time has been a tremendous help in finding clues and photos that I had overlooked or failed to find. I continue to work with DHS to put this story together, and I look forward to a cooperative effort between our organizations, as well as others. When I wrote my piece in 2020, I was ignorant of Dave’s work, but I would be remiss if I proceeded any further in recounting this story if I did not mention…
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The Noell-Parnham House, 888 Pine Street
The property upon which the home at 888 Pine Street stands was once part of the estate of John T. Watson. In 1884 the lot was sold to W.Y. Noell. It was likely he who commissioned the Italianate home to be built there. William Young Noell was born in December of 1854 in Oak Hill, North Carolina, the son of James D. and Virginia Penick Noell. Educated in Halifax, he came to Danville in his twenties and found employment with the dry goods dealer Sol Fleishman. He later took employment with Estes and Wooding, another dry goods business, of which Mayor Harry Wooding was a partner. He eventually quit the…
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Part One: The Advent of the Great Nanzetta
It was while I was researching the story on Police Chief Morris in December of 2018 that I first ran into the name Nanzetta. It was a newspaper article published by the Register and Bee in October of 1909 which described the arrest of a man, by Morris, for forging a check written by the Indian medicine doctor J.H. Nanzetta. It wasn’t long after that, while researching for a post on patent medicines and weird cures of the past, that I ran into Nanzetta again … and again. Not only did he advertise extensively in the local papers, but he seemed to be always in trouble with the law. The Edgar Stripling…
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Weird Christmas Greetings and What’s Coming in 2026!
Happy Holidays, one and all! May the the season and the New Year, especially, find you all well and ready to welcome in new and exciting things for 2026. As for us at Friends of the Old West End, we are looking at some big transformations and the broadening of our scope and ambitions. First of all, as you may have noticed, I’m back in the writer’s chair. After a bit of an existential crisis, I took a leave of absence and then decided that this is where I belong, after all. My apologies for the uncharacteristic wishy-washiness, but I did make some creative and executive decisions of my own.…
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The Other Nanzetta
Off and on between 1906 and into the 1920s, Danville, Virginia was home to a Patent Medicine Man who styled himself as “The Great Nanzetta”. In the decades that followed his death, memory regarding the once well-known “healer” faded and became confused with another eccentric Danville character whose identity was equally as mysterious. She, too, was known as Nanzetta, but that was not her name. How she got it is unclear, but the most likely answer is that the nickname was simply given her because she bore so many similar characteristics to the Dr. John H. Nanzetta whose “greatness” was so loudly advertised decades before. “About three days a week,”…
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The Dougherty Double House, 114-116 Holbrook Ave
On the 7th of June 1889, Berryman Green (son of Nathaniel T. Green) sold a large lot on Holbrook Avenue to Ella F. Dougherty. It was likely very soon after that that the grand brick Queen Anne double house was constructed. Mrs. Dougherty was born Ella Frances Millner on the 15th of October in 1853 to William Banks Millner and Mary Humphries Keen. Born in Danville, she was the first cousin of Nancy Ann Witcher Keen, the mother of Nancy Langhorne Astor. Ella married Dr. Charles Edwin Dougherty on her 25th birthday in 1878. Dr. Charles E. Dougherty, a dentist, was a native of New Jersey where he was born…
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The Bright Leaf Trail
Perhaps you’ve seen them, the tobacco leaf medallions embedded in the sidewalk around the Old West End and on Holbrook Street and Broad Street. They are the result of the collaborative efforts of Joyce Wilburn, creator and guide of the area’s three guided walking tours, and Fred Meder, local preservationist, neighbor, and owner/operator of Outdoor Designs Inc. The leaves mark the paths of the Millionaires Row Tour and the Holbrook Street Tour. They are numbered and lead to the gathering area on the side lawn of the Danville Museum of Fine Arts & History where the tours begin and end and where the granite information signs are located. During Fred’s…
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The Copeland-Graham House, 440 Chestnut Street
On the 2nd of December 1887, the lot on which 440 Chestnut Street now stands was conveyed to W.S. Copeland by J.M. Neal. Neal, like Nathaniel Green and the Griggs family, owned vast swaths of what would eventually become Danville’s Old West End historic district. The large and imposing brick Queen Anne home at 802 Main Street is the home (the second of two) built on that lot for the family of James Mastin Neal. Walter Scott Copeland, who constructed a much larger home at 145 Holbrook Avenue, seems to have built both homes for the purpose of investment as the family does not appear to have lived in either…
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The Albert Griggs House, 852 Green Street
Prior to 1870, the land upon which 852 Green Street now stands was part of the vast estate of Nathaniel T. Green. Mr. Green died just prior to the Civil War, and in 1870, his children began selling off portions of the property, including a large section facing Green Street which was purchased by George Whitfield Read. The large lot extended from the boundary of the Crumpton property at 838 Green Street to that of Dr. T.D. Stokes, who, in 1884, would sell the rear portion of his property (his own home faced Pine Street) to H.W. Brown who would build his large home and elaborate gardens at the at…
