The home at 249 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 249 Jefferson Avenue to his brother, James, also a doctor. The home was intended, and indeed was used by the George family as investment property. When Dr. James George died in 1926, he left the property to his wife, Ida Pace George. Ida passed away in 1929, and the property was transferred to the couple’s four children, Elizabeth George Wilson, Mary Catherine George Pilcher (and husband John Pilcher), Erie George, and Frances Russelle George East who maintained the home as rental property until 1945.

You can read more about the George brothers from our posts the other houses we have written about at 241 and 245 Jefferson Ave.

Among the George’s tenants was Thomas B. Cowper, an auditor for the Dick & Willie Railroad company who lived here with his wife and daughter in 1900. Also living in the home was Caleb Richmond, a tobacco auctioneer and his wife. The Richmonds, both in their late sixties when they lived here, shared their portion of the home with their twenty-six y ear old daughter who divided her time between helping her parents and teaching piano. In 1920, the tenants included James G,. Hall, an overseer in the cotton mill, along with his wife Anna and their three children, as well as his mother and a private family nurse. Kate Wray, a dressmaker, and her sister Josephine Abbott also rented rooms in the house.

Around 1927, Ernest Anthony moved into the house with his wife, Irene, and their five children.

Ernest Neander Anthony was born in 1882 in Charlotte, North Carolina to Col. James Timberlake Anthony and Clara La Flanhart Anthony. He married Irene Daphne Cogbill in August of 1905. Irene, born in 1889, was a native of Charlotte. The Anthonys arrived in Danville in 1917 where Mr. Anthony took work with the city water, gas, and electric department, a job he maintained until his retirement in 1948. In 1948, after eighteen years of residence, the Anthonys found themselves in a position to purchase the house from the George family. The family continued to occupy the home, now as owners, until daughter Clara sold the property in 1984, a year before her death. Two years before the sale of the home, she had moved into Roman Eagle Memorial Home.

Of their five children, Clara (pictured left), a school teacher, was the oldest. Born in 1907, she was already an adult when her family moved into the house. She was educated at Longwood College and worked for the Danville Public School system for 46 years. She never married.

James Timberlake Anthony was a teenager when his family moved into the home at 249 Jefferson Avenue. Born in 1911, James eventually found work with Dan River Mills which took him to New York city where he worked for the head office there. Upon retiring, he and his wife, Helen Kahl Dunford, whom he married in 1938,  returned to Virginia and established themselves in Richmond, where he lived at the time of his death in 1983.

Sarah Louise Anthony (pictured right) was born in 1916 in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Like her sister, she became a school teacher and taught high school in Danville Public Schools. She married Eugene Garland McCain, Jr. in 1948. Mr. McCain was a police officer and worked for the police department in Danville for thirty years, serving as patrolman, sergeant, detective, captain of traffic, and even as Chief of Police for twelve years. He died in 1988. The couple had one daughter, Diane Ruth McCain. In 1974, Diane was a student at Old Dominion University. While out driving with her boyfriend and a mutual friend, the driver lost control of the vehicle after hitting a pool of standing water on the roadway, sending the car spinning before it skidded backwards, crossed the opposite lane of traffic and struck a guardrail. The driver and friend survived, but Diane suffered a fractured skull and died. She was only twenty-one years old.

Ernest Neander Anthony, Jr. was born in 1919, making him about seven when the family moved onto Jefferson Avenue. Ernest was the first of the Anthony children to have been born in Danville, and he attended Danville schools, including the Danville Military Institute. In 1940, Ernest was working as a salesman in a bottling factory. Shortly thereafter, he moved to Newport News, Virginia where he worked for the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company before signing up to enter the military where he served both in Europe and in the South Pacific. After receiving an honorable discharge in 1946, he returned to Danville and worked for the C&P Telephone Company, retiring in 1981. He married Zora Donahue in 1938, and the couple had one son, Darra Neander Anthony.

Jane Anthony was born in 1922 in Danville. She lived in Danville all of her life, working as a florist at Ashworth Florist. She married Robert Lee Ashworth in 1939. She died in 2019. The couple had two sons.

With the death of Clara in 1984, who had lived in the house until her removal to Roman Eagle, the remaining children of Ernest Anthony sold the home to Robert and Ollie Lipford who immediately sold it to H.W. Bolton, Jr. and Mary N. Turner. The house appears to have stood vacant for a time before being sold in 1994 to Danville Speech and Hearing Center and then again in 2000 to Faith Baptist Church. In 2001 it was purchased by C.B. Maddox and Bill Wellbank, which, along with its sister at 245 Jefferson Ave, was one of several homes rescued by the two gentleman who are to be credited for much of Jefferson Avenue’s revival after many years of being one of the rougher streets in the Old West End.

Since 2017, the home has been owned and maintained by Elliott Beyer.

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