In June of 1885, E.D. Christian sold a lot of land on Green Street to Fred Robins. It was very likely that, shortly thereafter, a home appeared on the property.
Frederick A. Robins was born in England in 1852. At the age of 14, he immigrated with his family to the United States. In 1880 he married Mary E. Myers who was born in Danville. The couple shared the property with Mary’s father, Joseph, who was listed in the 1888 directory as being employed as a “general merchant”. Fred, according to the same directory, worked in wines and liquors. Mary’s brother, Charles Howard Myers, also a purveyor of wines and liquors, lived next door at 808 Green Street. Though Fred and Mary held onto the property, by 1900 the family, including Joseph and Charles, had moved to Richmond. Fred returned to Danville after the death of his wife in 1920, residing with this son, William, on Sutherlin Avenue, and it was there he passed away of nephritis in 1934 at the age of 82.
In 1924, Fred transferred the property to his son William Alfred Robins. William, who had a home of his own at 141 Sutherlin Avenue, maintained the Green Street home as rental property. The property, for a time, became the home of Major Stanley W. and Jessie Martin.
Mr. Martin grew up surrounded by education, his father having been a professor at Hampden-Sidney college at the time of Stanley’s birth. After his education, he attended Virginia Polytechnical Institute. It was at this time, in 1888, that his father, then living in Danville, died suddenly. Stanley arrived in Danville and was appointed clerk of the federal court here. In 1909 he was made clerk of the district, which appointment took him to Lynchburg. For twenty years, Major Martin was affiliated with the Virginia state military organization, including service in 1916 in the Mexican border campaign. In 1918, Major Martin was examined for overseas service, during which it was discovered that he had a valvular heart condition. He was therefore discharged from service. The condition would be that which ended his life a year later.
After Major Martin’s removal to Lynchburg, Benjamin Moore and Nannie Beckham were next to reside in the home which they shared with their three children and Benjamin’s mother, Lucy. Mr. Moore, of Nottaway County, was a Methodist minister. He was educated at Randolph-Macon College and then at Vanderbilt University. He was one of the founders of Ferrum Junior College in Franklin County and served as its president from its opening in 1913 until 1934.
It’s unclear exactly when Mr. Beckham quit the Green Street property, but by 1920 it was the home of George Dyer. George lived in the home with his wife Della and their five children, Welsh, Blanche, Gus (grandfather of our friend and neighbor Gus Dyer), Willard and Franklin.
George Smith Dyer was born near Axton, Virginia in 1856. In 1885 he married Della Virginia Delaware Minter. In the years George lived in the Green street property, he worked as a grocer, then as a clerk for the city market located in the rear of the old municipal building. In the decade prior to his death, he worked for the city as sealer of weights and measures. The couple had nine children.
The newspaper, in 1922, featured a colorful story about one of Mr. Dyer’s children, Gus, who, upon watching a rat walk calmly into the family’s parlor, beat the rat to death with a broom and a poker from the fire. The rat was described as white and being eight inches in length.
George Dyer spent the remainder of his life in the Green Street house, succumbing to metastasized cancer in 1940 which he had suffered from for nearly a year prior. His granddaughter, Ellen Davis, (who recently celebrated her 97th birthday) recalls that the home’s façade featured floor-length windows that led from the front parlor onto the porch. The house, which no longer stands, was likely razed during the “demolition frenzy” of 1969 (more on that to come).
Following Mr. Dyer’s death (and a residence of at least twenty years), Mrs. Dyer moved next door to the Treadway house at 820 Green Street. In 1947, she lost her 55 year old daughter, Nell, to a heart attack and a year later, 52 year old Robert to a self-inflicted gunshot wound. In 1950, Della fell in her home and fractured her pelvis. She passed away on December 30 of that year.
In 1947, the house was sold to Robert and Minnie Jordan. Mr. Jordan died in 1965 and in 1966 the property was sold for $10. Three years later the “lot of land” at this address was sold to Millie L. Haley and the property was joined with the neighboring property at 808 Green Street as it is today.
Sources:
Census and Vital records found at Familysearch.org
Images and vital information, including biographical sketches found at FindaGrave.com
Death notices and other information found in the Danville Register, Danville Bee and other newspaper archives at Newspapers.com and GenealogyBank.com
Census, Directory, Newspaper, and other information compiled by Paul Liepe
