The Boatwright-Sohmer House, 136 Chestnut Street

Around 1890, William T. Sutherlin began selling off portions of his land in order to raise money to pay a debt. On the 1st of April 1890, lot no. 28 (now 136), fronting Chestnut Street, was sold to Herbert Lee Boatwright. Boatwright soon thereafter commissioned the construction of a home for himself and his new wife, formerly Mary E. Vaughan.

Born September 12, 1862 in Buckingham County, Herbert Lee Boatwright was the fifth child of seven born to Dr. John Guerrant and Pattie Pendleton Boatwright. The Boatwright family moved to Danville in 1865, when when “Lee”, as he was called, was just three years old.

Lee’s father died in 1874, leaving Lee, just twelve, to quit school and go to work. He found a job in George H. Hughes’s tobacco factory on the warehouse floor, where he learned the tobacco trade from the ground up, eventually rising in ranks as he developed a discerning eye for spotting the highest quality tobacco. His education was timely, as Danville was quickly earning a name for itself in the tobacco trade. At the age of seventeen, Lee was taken on as manager of the brokerage of Ferrell and Flinn and, just a few years later, left them to become a partner in his own firm of Schoolfield, Boatwright and Company, independent dealers.

By 1898, Lee had outgrown the modest home on Chestnut Street and traded it in for a much larger and more prominent home on Millionaire’s Row. In the course of purchasing the Bell-Pace house at 904 Main Street, the Lee’s sold their Chestnut Street house to William N. Farmer and his wife, Essie.

William Farmer was born on the 19th of August 1873 in Pittsylvania County to Pleasant Bedford and Martha Smith Wilkinson Farmer. In 1897, William married Essie Barrow, a native of Danville.

It does not appear that the Farmers lived in the Main Street house long. By 1900, they were living in Wake County, North Carolina, where Lee’s brother William worked as a bookkeeper. That same year, the U.S. Census identified Henry and Ida Walker living at the Chestnut Street residence as renters with their three children and a servant. Mr. Walker was employed as a tobacconist.

In 1905, possibly owing to William’s failing health, the Farmers sold the house to C.G. Holland and relocated to El Paso, Texas, where Mr. Farmer hoped to benfit by the dryer climate. In December of 1908, Essie returned home to visit family for Christmas and upon arrival received the message that her husband had died. The cause of death was acute peritonitis and exhaustion. He was only 34.

Charlton Gillmore Holland, son of Christopher Grant Holland whose large home was once located prominently on Main Street and a cousin of the Greens, owned the house for only six months before selling it to Minnie C. Turner (no connection to Minnie Turner Howard next door at 140 Chestnut Street) in exchange for a 1/2 lot on Main Street and $2,500.

The Turners were not here long, maintaining the home as rental property for five years before selling it in 1910. During their ownership the home was rented to Albert S. Wooding, another tobacconist, his wife Hellen and his two brothers Crews and Henry (cousins of Mayor Harry Wooding) who also worked in tobacco.

The new owner in July of 1910 was John P. Pruitt, who, like those before him, used the house as rental income. Little is known about the house during his time as landlord.

In 1918, Mr. Pruitt sold the home to Fannie C. Howard. We don’t have enough information about Ms. Howard to positively identify her, but it’s very possible that she was the wife of Turner Blackwell Howard, son of Minnie Howard who owned the home next door at 140 Chestnut Street. In which case, Fannie C. Howard would be Francis E. Carrington Howard born in 1883. Fannie owned the home for a mere eighteen months before selling it on the 10th of November 1919 to M.F. Sohmer for $5,700.

Neither did the Sohmers own the house for long, not quite two years, but in that time, they nevertheless made significant changes to it. Contemporaneous to purchasing the house, they took out a building loan for $4,500 from Danville Perpetual Building Loan and Savings Co. The home’s shape and size and appearance were altered, and it may have been they who added the beautiful latticework to the home’s front facade, by which the house has been recognized and identified since.

Marcus Frank Sohmer, Sr. was born on the 20th of January 1890 in Brooklyn, New York. According to his obituary, he was “raised and educated in Savannah, Georgia and moved to Danville, Va in 1914”. On the 25th of January 1915 he married Ilah Janette Bullington a native of Pittsylvania county. The couple had two children.

On the 12th of October, 1921, the Sohmers sold the home for $7,000 to Irma Lea Graves who would reside in the home for the next fifty years.

Irma Lea Graves, a cousin of John Greene Lea whose home on Jefferson Avenue was recently demolished (March 2026) was born on the 6th of August 1889 in Yanceyville, North Carolina, the oldest of five children born to William Lea Graves and Belle Harrison Graves of whom were born two sons and three daughters, all of whom never married.

Irma, a secretary-treasurer for Waddell, Holland & Flynn, purchased the home when she was 32 years old. The home may have been purchased for her by her father, or perhaps he shared it with her, having been widowered in 1910. For whatever reason, the directory lists him as residing at this residence in 1927. Two years later, he died. Thereafter it seems Irma rented a portion of her home out to lodgers like William C. Tate, a dry goods salesman and G.R. Linkous, the manager of a welding company. Both men resided there with their wives but no children. By 1930, Irma’s sister Mary was living with her, and did so, it seems, for at least fifteen years, but eventually she relocated to Florida to help care for her niece and nephew.

Irma died in 1978, leaving the property to her sister. The home was sold in 1982 to Robert Whitt who owned the home for five years before selling it to Michael T. Wood. It changed hands several times in the 80s and 90s, all the while being used as rental property, until it went into foreclosure in 2016 when the Danville Redevelopment and Housing Authority took possession and it became part of the city of Danville’s resale program finding new hope with its present owner who purchased it in 2019.

Sources:
Census and Vital records found at Familysearch.orgImages and vital information, including biographical sketches found at FindaGrave.comDeath 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