The Queen Anne Victorian home at 1031 Main Street, along with its twin at 1027 Main Street (no longer standing) were constructed around 1890 by Caleb Dula, a newcomer to Danville who would eventually, along with three of his brothers, become one of the biggest names in Danville’s Tobacco legacy.
Much has been written of the Dula’s already. The Dula family were natives of Lenoir, North Carolina, where Sidney Patterson and Jane Conley Dula and their ten children (five boys and five girls) owned and worked a tobacco farm. The Civil War devastated them, however, and so the family relocated to Wentzville, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, where they sought a chance to start over. The eldest son, George, nearly a man when the family moved, only stayed in Missouri a couple of years before returning to North Carolina where he remained the rest of his life. In Wentzville, the second eldest, Robert, taught school to supplement the family income. Eventually, however, his skills in tobacco called him back to work in a warehouse where several of his other brothers, including a twin, Adolphus, found work. His talent at selecting tobacco attracted the attention of J.T. Drummond, president of the Drummond Tobacco Company, who hired him as a salesmen. Brothers Adolphus, Sydney, and Caleb also found employment with the company based in St. Louis.
As the Danville market showed signs of predominating the industry, Caleb, accompanied by his brother, Sidney, relocated to Danville and here established a branch of the Drummond Tobacco Company, from which headquarters they could monitor the regional trade.
Caleb, shortly after his arrival in 1890, began construction of two identical houses which he built side by side on Main Street. Caleb most likely occupied 1031 until circumstances called him back to St. Louis in 1897. It was at that time that Barnes and Mary Katherine Penn took residence of the house while they supervised the construction of their own home—a wedding present from her father (his uncle)—across the street at 1020 Main Street.
Barnes Penn was one of seventeen children born to Grenville Penn and Kate Mundy Rucker. The Grenville Penn family lived at 132 Holbrook Avenue. Mary Katherine Penn was the daughter of James Gabriel Penn and Sarah Elizabeth Pemberton of 862 Main Street. Barnes Penn came to Danville to assist his father in the tobacco trade. Barnes eventually took the business of Pemberton and Penn, Inc. over for his father. Barnes and his wife were first cousins, descendants of John Penn, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
With the completion of the home across the street at 1020 Main Street around 1903, Barnes and Katherine Penn moved out of 1031 and into their marital home. 1031 Main Street was then purchased by Annie Arrington.
Annie Arrington was born Anna Marshall Dillard in February of 1855 to Col. Overton Redd Dillard and Sallie Celestia Hughes Martin (granddaughter of General Joseph Martin for whom Martinsville was named) of Henry county. She married Christopher Arrington, Jr. in 1877. The couple had two daughters, Ella (1878) and Daisy (1879). A third daughter, Bessie, is attributed to Mr. Arrington, even though her birth took place in December of 1881, a full 15 months after his death.
Christopher was employed in the retail grocery business, and the family (which included Christopher’s two brothers, David and Richard, and David’s wife, Bettie) lived on Union Street, presumably above their shop, in the years prior to Mr. Arrington’s death of “inflammation of stomach” in 1880. In 1886, Anna married Christopher’s younger brother Richard Adler Arrington. Richard and Anna had one child, Richard Adler, Jr. (1888), before Richard died in 1888. Before his marriage to Bessie, Richard was briefly married to Nanny C. Moon. It is unclear what happened to her, but it may be supposed she died sometime after the birth of the couple’s only child in 1886.
Annie was a widow when she purchased 1031 Main Street, and for several years she shared the home with her daughter, Bessie Cheatham, herself a widow. Bessie had married Abner Benjamin Cheatham, a dispatcher for the railroad, in July of 1903. In March of 1906, Abner suffered a sudden and acute attack of appendicitis. He was rushed to the hospital where an emergency appendectomy was performed, but doctors were unable to save him. The young man was only 24 years old.
In 1927, Bessie married Edgar Forrest Scales. She left her mother’s home for a time, but returned upon Annie’s death in 1937. In 1940, Bessie and Edgar separated (and later divorced) and the house was sold in 1942 to Susie Turner Foster.
Susan Priscilla Turner was born on the 13th of May 1889 in Stuart, Patrick County, Virginia to Robert Edgar Turner, Sr. and Virginia Priscilla Tatum Turner. Susan married Peter Critz Foster in 1912. It was, however, not Susan and her husband who lived here for the next three decades, but the family of Susan’s brother, Robert Edgar Turner, Jr.
Robert was born on the 17th of October 1895. Robert came to Danville in 1920, after serving in WWI, and here he opened a wholesale produce business which he maintained until 1952 when his health began to decline. He married Lena Scott Stutlz in 1921, and the couple had five children. He passed away in 1962 after a “cerebrovascular accident and septicemia”, in other words, a stroke that was perhaps brought on by a bedsore or some other infection.
In preparation for the Turner’s retirement and waning years, and to secure their ability to remain in their home, the couple sold the house to their daughter, Alice P. Turner. After the death of her father in 1962, Mrs. Turner remained in the house for a time, but by 1986, the Turner family finally surrendered ownership and the house was purchased by the Danville Historical Society as part of their Coy Garbett Revolving Fund. The home was stabilized and resold to William J. McCaw III and Billie Ann McCaw who lovingly restored the home.
Today the Dula-Penn House is the home of Jeffery Moore.
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
Victorian Danville, Fifty-two Landmarks: Their Architecture & History. Gary Grant and Mary Cahill
