The home at 941 Green Street first appears on record in the 1910 U.S. Census as well as on the Sandborn Map of the same year. The property, at the time, was owned by Anderson Wade Douthat (read more about his acquisition and disposal of the property in a companion post). It is believed he developed the property from one large lot into three between the years 1904 and 1910. In 1910, Charles and Mildred riddle were residing here. Mildred was actually the sister of Mr. Douthat. Others of the Douthat family lived nearby. A brother, Fielding Lewis Douthat, lived at 133 Holbrook Avenue, while sisters, Pattie, Willice, Bessie, and Champie, lived next door at 135.
The Douthats were kin to famed author Julian R. Meade, who wrote about his aunts in delightful caricature in his book, I Live in Virginia, and which we’ll write more about in an upcoming post.
In 1911, when A.W. Douthat auctioned his properties on the lot of land bordered by Holbrook Avenue and Green and Colquhoun Streets, he put the transaction in the hands of his trustees James P. and Randolph Harrison. As stated in a previous post, the Harrisons bid and acquired 507 Holbrook Avenue for themselves, as well as lot 3 which would become 941 Green Street.
The Harrison family has been in Virginia since the colonies. According to the Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography (Lyon Gardiner Tyler, Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1915), the family arrived from England by way of Benjamin Harrison about 1634 when he received a deed of two hundred acres of land on Warresquioake creek. During his life he served as clerk of the council of the colony as well as standing as a member of the house of burgesses. Descendants are considered FFVs – among the First Families of Virginia.
It was two of Benjamin’s 5th great grandsons who introduced the family to life in Danville. Brothers Rev. John H. “Hartwell” Harrison and lawyer James Pinkney Harrison arrived here about 1900. James P. Harrison first appears in census records as the owner of 644 Jefferson Street, a beautiful brick Italianate house that still stands today, and in which he remained until at least 1920. (For a time, from 1923 until his death in 1925, he resided at 169 Holbrook Avenue.)
The family of John H. Harrison appears in the 1910 census at 858 Paxton Avenue where his wife, Anna Mayo Carrington Harrison was living with five of their ten children (four of their children had died as infants). The eldest, Isaac, was living and working in Clarksville during the years just prior to his relocation to Danville.
It was lawyer James P. Harrison and his son, Randolph, who served as trustees at the time of the Douthat property auction in 1911. James bid and was awarded both 507 Holbrook Avenue, which he sold to his nephew Isaac Carrington Harrison, a doctor, and 941 Green Street, which he deeded to his nieces and nephews, the children of his deceased brother Rev. Hartwell Harrison. The property subsequently became the home of unmarried niece Sarah E. Harrison.
It seems there is hardly a Harrison who did not make some enormous contribution to Danville, most prominently through tobacco and banking. Sarah, too, may be credited with improving the lives of those who lived and visited Danville, particularly in her work in bringing spiritual and domestic comforts to the thousands of traveling salesmen who frequented Danville and its hotels and tourist homes. When Miss Harrison died in 1908, the paper announced the event thusly: Sarah Harrison, Traveling Men’s ‘Angel’, is Dead.
Miss Harrison had already been considered a religious leader in the community when she founded the “Pay-it-Forward” club in 1919. Her idea was that she and a committee of women would greet the men arriving into Danville who worked as travelling salesmen and escort them first to church and then to dinner or to a “quiet social hour” at the Harrison house, either her own on Green Street or that of her family on Holbrook Avenue. Supposedly this program would ward off any temptations these gentlemen might have to seek more illicit companionship by other means.
“The club had a far-flung reputation as knights of the road, appreciative of the religious solicitude, carried the story of its organization far and wide. Strong and lasting friendships were established through the medium and, until Miss Harrison’s health began to decline, the Sunday evening church attendances here were largely increased through the medium of the club.” (The Times Dispatch, Richmond, VA 23 Jan 1935)
It may be owing to James P. Harrison’s death in 1925 that Sarah suddenly had a watershed of money which allowed her to commission major renovations of both the interior and exterior of 941 Green Street. She hired architect J. Bryant Heard to design it, and she moved out of her home and into that of her neighbors, taking rooms in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Harrison Robertson of 507 Holbrook Avenue, while the work was completed. Sarah died in 1935 of cancer.
For the thirty-plus years that followed, the property was the home of William Lanier, the first cousin twice removed of Captain James A. Lanier, Danville’s first Mayor. On the 1910 Census, while living in Tunstall, Mr. Lanier was identified as a farmer. Mr. Lanier was later identified as the owner of Danville Implement Company, a trucking and heavy equipment concern. He passed away on 28 September 1961 of cancer.
Since 1985, the property has been the home of the Hatten family.
