The James Pritchett House, 108 West Main Street

When James Pritchett, Jr. purchased the property at 108 West Main Street from A.W. Traylor in 1910, a wood frame home stood there designed in the traditional Victorian Queen Anne style. Twelve years later, about 1922, the home was razed and the Tudor Revival house that stands there today was built.

James Ira Pritchett, Jr. was born in Danville on the 7th of September 1883 to James I. Pritchett and Eleanor Hickson Pritchett whose home at 992 Main Street was raised to make way for the realignment of Holbrook Street with Holbrook Avenue.

Mr. Pritchett owned and operated the Dan Valley Flour Mills located about where the new YMCA now stands. He also owned and operated a wholesale grocery and building supply firm known as James I. Pritchett and Son which he operated with his son James Ira Pritchett, III and which he had inherited from his own father who had established the firm in 1891.

James married Mary Drake in 1907, and the couple had four children, three of whom predeceased them. James Ira, III, upon suffering what was believed to be an asthma attack in December of 1950, accompanied by his brother, Dr. Drake Pritchett, was taken by the Townes ambulance to the University of Virginia Hospital for observation but died of a heart attack on the way there. It was later deemed he had a lung infection which caused heart and liver failure.

Eleanor, born in 1916, married Lee Sutton Booth in 1939. She died in 1958 of liver disease.

A son, Hodges, is listed in historical records as having been born about 1915, but he only appears on the 1920 Census and then nothing more is seen of him.

The Pritchett family occupied the home for some forty years when it was sold to Stratford College. The college used the home as dormitories until 1974 when the school closed.

For a time, the first floor served as the offices of Dr. Lurton Arey. For a brief time, the Danville Yoga and Meditation Center held classes here. It is presently one of the many properties owned by Tim Norton.

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
Danville Historical Society annual Holiday Tour archive