The home at 244 West Main Street was built in 1916 by famed local architect J. Bryant Heard for Julian Meade.
Julian Meade (not to be confused with his nephew, the author Julian Rutherford Meade) was born in Augusta, Virginia in 1866, the first of five children born to Seth Hodijah Baylis Meade, Jr. and Mary Opie Meade. Julian was the brother of Edmund Baylis Meade, Mayor of Danville after the death of Harry Wooding. The family arrived in Danville shortly after the end of the Civil War, where Julian’s Father, Dr. H.B. Meade, as he was known, had served as a surgeon in the Confederate Army.
Julian attended Danville public schools and then went on to the University of Virginia where he earned his law degree.
Mr. Meade married Elizabeth Edmunds Bouldin in 1895. Elizabeth was the daughter of Edwin Edmunds “E.E.” Bouldin, a prominent lawyer whose name appears on many of the deed records and wills we research to make these posts.
Elizabeth was born in Danville in 1873, and by the time she was two or three was living at 636 Holbrook Avenue in a home built for the family and which they occupied until her father’s death in 1912.
During World War I, the city attorney, Mr. A.M. Aiken enlisted and Mr. Meade took his place. The couple had one child, Edwin B. Meade who followed in his father’s footsteps by studying law. Upon Edwin’s return to Danville after his graduation from the University of Virginia in 1920, the two gentlemen formed the law partnership of Meade and Meade.
About the same time as this house was being built, Julian’s brother, Randolph Meade purchased the home at 1050 Main Street, now the home of King Cropp, and hired the same architect, J. Bryant Heard, to complete major renovations to the home’s interior and exterior facade.
When Julian passed away in 1945 after a long struggle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease), the house passed to his son and business partner Edwin B. Meade.
Edwin was born on the 30th of October 1896 in Danville and, except for his service in the Navy during WWI, spent his entire life in Danville. For 50 years he was a well known and respected trial lawyer. The firm he partnered with his father became Meade, Meade and Talbott in 1930 when Frank Talbott, Jr. joined the firm. Julian retired in 1936. It later changed to Meade, Talbott and Tate, and when Edwin’s son Frank joined the firm, it became Meade, Tate and Meade.
Edwin married Madeline Merle Read in 1923. Madeline was a native of Dighton, Massachusetts and was born in 1895. Madeline was educated at the New England Conservatory of Music, Boston and came to Danville in 1919 to teach piano and history of music at Randolph Macon Institute (Stratford College). During her life she was active in the Wednesday Club, the Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History, the Dorothea Henry chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Gabriella Garden Club and the Garden Club of Virginia. She passed away in 1981 of a heart attack.
The couple had three children, including Frank who inherited the home when his father died in 1993. During his life he was a member of the 1945 Virginia Constitutional Convention, a member of the Virginia Bar Association, and served on the Virginia State Board of Law Examiners. He was a guest lecturer at UVA Law School where he taught Virginia Equity Pleading and Practice and was responsible for editing Virginia’s Equity textbook, Lile’s Equity Pleading and Practice. Edwin was also involved in the early growth of the Danville YMCA and was a member of the organization’s state championship volleyball team in the 1920s. He was an avid fisherman, golfer, and bird hunter.
Sometime before 1960, Julian and Bessie, as she was known, converted the house into a duplex. When Edwin died in 1993, the house was sold to Robert Echols and his wife, Kirk Bidgood-Echols who restored the house into a single family home, carefully reverting the home to its original floorplan, restoring lost balustrades, removing partition walls, and carefully preserving those elements that belonged to the original structure and design.
Kirk Bidgood-Echols, according to Danville Historical Society records, is a great-granddaughter of Col. A.B. Carrington whose home at 622 Holbrook Avenue was built on a lot of land subdivided from the property of E.E. Bouldin.
For many years Kirk was the director of the Free Clinic, now owned by PATHS.
In 2003, the Echols sold the home to Rita Doggett who owned the property until 2020. It is presently the home of Jason Bryant, Sr. who purchased it in 2021 from Atkinson Rentals, LLC.
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
