In 1873, the City of Danville conveyed a large portion of land fronted by Green Street to H.A. Edmunson, “in trust for the use of Sallie R. Tredway” (his sister). She and her husband Moses built a house there at 820 Green Street.
In 1910, the Tredway children sold off the rear portions of that lot. The property that would become 819 Pine Street was purchased by Minnie F. Shoffner, presumably as investment property since there are no records of her ever having lived here.
The house itself was likely built at the same time as the nearly identical structure next door at 817 Pine Street in or around 1914. The Sandborn Map of 1910 shows only an empty lot, but when the maps were published again in 1915, both houses are identified. Mrs. Shoffner owned the house for only six months before it was sold. In April of 1920, John Lambert Harvey purchased it on behalf of his mother, Euphemia Jane ‘Lou’ Moss Harvey. The family had lived at 861 Colquhoun Street prior to relocating to the Pine Street residence, whereafter, Mrs. Lou Harvey was listed as head of the family and the home’s owner.
Lou was born in 1869 in Stokes County, North Carolina. She was seventeen years old when she married James Thomas Harvey in 1886. The couple had six children, the youngest being just ten years old when Mr. Harvey passed away unexpectedly in 1914 from a heart attack while shoeing a horse. Lou resided in the Pine Street home with her two youngest daughters, Lucy and Mary. Three days after Christmas in 1943 she was admitted into Memorial Hospital with a severe asthma attack. She passed away on the 29th of December at the age of seventy-four. The house then passed to her daughters.
Lucy Alma Harvey was born in 1899 in Tunstall, Pittsylvania County, Virginia. In 1930 she was employed as a clerk for a diary company. By 1940 she was a bookkeeper for an insurance agency. Like her mother, she suffered from bronchial asthma all her life. She passed away in her Pine Street home in June of 1964 of a coronary embolism at the age of 64.
Mary Annie Harvey, a social worker, continued to live in the Pine Street house until her own death in 1986 from a heart attack while visiting friends on North Main Street. The family had resided in the home for over 65 years.
The house was acquired by the Danville Redevelopment and Housing Authority in October of 2020 and is presently under contract to a new owner.
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 archives at Newspapers.com
Census, Directory, Newspaper, and other information compiled by Paul Liepe
