The lot upon which the house at 126 Sutherlin Avenue would be built in 1904 was sold by the widow of Major William T. Sutherlin, Jane E. Patrick Sutherlin, to Julia Anderson the year or so previous to its construction. The lot upon which Julia and her husband, Joseph, would build their home was formerly the rear yard of the Sutherlin family’s Italianate mansion.
Born in 1847 in Spring Garden in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, Joseph Bannister Anderson attended Emory and Henry College before arriving in Danville during the Civil War. It was in that conflict he earned the title of Major, and it was he who delivered Jefferson Davis’s last official proclamation to the Danville Register, then operated by Joseph’s brother Captain Abner Anderson.
Julia was born in Richmond 0n the 16th of August 1855 to Dr. Charles Millspaugh and Henrietta Talbot Millspaugh. Just prior to the war, her family moved to Chillicothe, Illinois. She returned with her father’s family to Richmond approximately seven years later when Julia was still in her “teens”. Julia had a relation in Danville whom she often visited, a Mr. T.J. Talbott, and it was while visiting him that she met Mr. Anderson. The couple were married at his home in 1873 and afterward the couple set up house in Danville. In time, they moved back to the Anderson family farm in Spring Garden where Mr. Anderson worked as a merchant farmer. Twelve years later, they returned to Danville where they remained the rest of their lives, first in an apartment building that used to stand where a portion of the parking lot for First Baptist Church now sits and then to the home built by and for them at 126 Sutherlin Avenue.
From at least 1900 until his death in 1934, Major Anderson was Danville’s Commissioner of Revenue. He was also a member of Virginia’s General Assembly. The couple had two sons and two daughters.
Maria Louise Anderson was born 22 July 1875 and married Lysander B. Conway in November of 1984. She died ten months later of undisclosed causes.
Thomas Talbott Anderson was born in 1877 and married Martha Ann Elliott on the 12th of December 1901. He was employed by Leggit & Myers Tobacco Company in Philadelphia. He died in 1929 of a cardiac event following the discovery of a rare type of cancer behind his abdominal lining. He was 52 years old.
Henrietta Temple Anderson was born 31 January 1879. She married William Bascom Jordan, Sr. in 1910.
Joseph Roscoe Anderson was born on the 29th of July 1884 during the family’s twelve-year stint in Spring Garden. He served in World War I and married Bessie Martin Watson in 1912. Joseph was said to have been tall, of slender build, with brown eyes and black hair. He died in 1924 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania while working (alongside his brother Thomas) as a representative of the Leggit & Myers Tobacco company. At his death, he left behind three children and a young wife. After Joseph’s death, his wife, “Bessie”, returned to Danville and purchased the home at 103 South Main Street, which we now know as Kennedy Hall which was once part of Stratford College. Mrs. Anderson, the daughter of Walter D. Watson of 165 Holbrook Ave, lived here until her death in 1961.
On the 14th of November 1920, Julia died after a long struggle with angina. She had been ill since October of 1898 and was often bedbound from that time onward. On the 11th of November 1920, just days prior to her death, she had been contemplating a trip to John’s Hopkins Hospital to seek the help that had so far eluded her. That evening, the final attack came, and she found no relief until the end.
After her marriage to Mr. Jordan,, Henrietta remained in her parent’s home. As the wife of the head of Morotock Manufacturing Company (an early iteration of Dan River Mills) the couple probably had the resources to purchase or build one of Danville’s finest Main Street homes, but her mother’s ill health prevented it. Neither was Mr. Jordan destined to live a long and healthy life. On the morning of March 2nd, 1929, he suffered a heart attack while still in bed. He had been feeling unwell since late January when he had suffered a premonitory heart attack. The second event, it seemed proved fatal.
On the 21st of November 1934, Major Anderson passed away of a heart event, leaving the home to his wife, his daughter, Henrietta, and her son William, Jr., known as “Bascom” who would later became Danville’s City Attorney.
In 1954, Mrs. Jordan purchased the home at 103 South Main Street from her sister-in-law who moved into an apartment in the Peter Penn House on the corner of Main and Randolph Streets. Henrietta sold the Sutherlin Avenue home to Mr. and Mrs. Glen Brickey and moved to 334 West Main Street.
Only six months later, the Brickeys sold the property to Mr. and Mrs. Samuel T. Patterson.
Samuel Thorne Patterson was born in Littleton, North Carolina on the 18th of May 1905 to John Rice Patterson and Susan Maben Allen Patterson. He married Frances Daniel Vick of Danville in December of 1935, and in 1948 the couple and their three children, Samuel, Jr., Ellen Daniel, and George Vick Patterson moved to Danville. Mr. Patterson was employed by Long Mile Rubber Company until his retirement in 1970.
In February of 1974, their youngest son, then thirty year-old George Vick Patterson, while living in Charlottesville, died from a self inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. In April of the following year, Mr. Patterson died of prostate cancer, an affliction he had suffered from for little over a year.
After her husband’s death, Frances sold the home to Mr. and Mrs. John J. Smith.
John Jordan Smith, born March 11, 1910 in Beaufort, North Carolina, worked as a real estate developer. He married Mary Kate Bell in 1936, and the couple lived in Norfolk for a time before moving back to North Carolina and then to Halifax, Virginia before arriving in Danville.
Their plans for the Sutherlin Avenue house included making the first floor into office space so that Mr. Smith could work from his residence. The second floor was converted into an apartment. Sometime around 1985 the couple sold the home and returned to Washington, North Carolina where he passed away in 1992. Mary Kate passed six years later.
The house was sold in 1985 to Drs. William W. Henderson and Thomas J. O’Neill who used the house as the Danville Pulmonary Clinic. It was at this time that the rear yard was paved over to provide parking and the back porch was enclosed to provide a waiting room for the clinic.
In 1995, Drs. Henderson and O’Neill gave up occupancy of the house at 126 Sutherlin Avenue in order to move into a larger facility, leasing the Sutherlin property to Dr. Jeffrey Crittenden who used it to open the Danville Neurology Clinic. Two years later, the clinic moved to Broad Street. That year, cosmetic surgeon Dr. Randy Buckspan purchased the property.
In 2004, American National Bank & Trust acquired the property, and two years later, the city of Danville purchased it. In the years since it has been leased to the Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History who used it for a time as an in-house resource library for the museum’s books and files and later for their Artist in Residence program. Currently it is being used as offices space for the Dan River Region Non-Profit Network. The Museum hopes eventually to use it once again as headquarters for their Artist in Residency program.
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
DHS Annual Holiday Walking Tour 1997
