The home at 241 Jefferson Avenue is one of a row of houses built by respected physician Franklin George who acquired the four lots in 1891 from J.S. Pritchett. The homes that stand there today were likely built that following year. Dr. George passed away in 1897, leaving lot 13 addressed at 245 Jefferson Avenue to his brother, James, also a doctor. The home was intended, and indeed was used by the George family as investment property.

In or around 1906, Robert K. Moss took occupancy of the home with his wife Lizze and two daughters Laura And Willie.

Robert Moss was born in Clarkesville, Virginia on the 5th of April 1854. He came to Danville in 1881 to take up business with W.P. Averett in the shoe business. In 1889 he married Lizzie Fisher Brown. It was about the time of the family’s arrival on Jefferson Avenue that Mr. Moss traded in his occupation as a shoe salesman to work for the post office driving a Rural Free Delivery wagon. The RFD vehicle was as a miniature post office, allowing patrons to send and receive mail, ship packages, and purchase stamps, money orders, and other postal supplies. Usually the wagons provided room for two people, one to drive and the other to process mail along the route. (See an example pictured left.)

The family lived in the house for almost 25 years before Robert and Lizzie relocated to the double house at 924 Green Street. It was there, in 1934, that Robert, having contracted influenza, passed away.

After the Moss Family, Lottie B. Spencer inhabited the home until she moved to Greensboro, North Carolina in 1942, followed by the freshly divorced Lester R. Gosney who lived there for ashort time. Around 1945, the home received it’s second long term resident in the person of Jesse Carson Cassada who occupied the residence until the mid 1980s.

Mr. Cassada was born in Pittsylvania County in 1904, the son of Melvin and Virginia Cassada. He was educated at Hargrave Military Academy and at Ferrum College. He  spent his career working for Dan River Mills, having worked there 35 years. He married Grace Haraway Cassada in April of 1943. Sometime after 1985, Mr. Cassada and his wife moved to Roman Eagle where he passed away on the 24th of July 1988, just three days shy of his 84th birthday.

In 2004, C.B. Maddox and Bill Wellbank acquired the property, along with its sister at 249 Jefferson Avenue, and began the painstaking work of restoring the homes. 245 Jefferson Ave presently belongs to Old West End neighbors Courtney Ann Glymph and Kadeem Johnson.

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
2005 Tour Book, Danville Historical Society annual Holiday Walking Tour
Census, Directory, Newspaper, and other information compiled by Paul Liepe