The Peter Booth House, 247 West Main Street

The home at 247 West Main Street was constructed in 1914 at the direction of Peter Booth who, with his brother Charles, was responsible for the four nearly identical houses on this section of West Main Street. Legend has it that the work was done by four Italian men who placed each of the stones quarried and transported by train from Mt. Airy, North Carolina by hand and that no two are alike. Using a frame of wooden scaffolding they expertly erected the two-foot thick walls, taking two years to complete the work. By 1916 Peter Booth and his family were in residence.

Peter Louis Booth was born in Franklin County, Virginia on the 19th of October 1868, the eldest of four children born to Christopher Silas booth and Susan Elizabeth Wooding.  The family moved to Danville in 1872 and the brothers formed Booth Brothers grocery in 1893. That same year Peter married Mary Susan Tate. The couple would have five children.

In 1926, the Peter Booth family sold the home to J.M. Thompson, also a grocery man, whose family would occupy the home for the next thirty years. In 1957, after the death of Mrs. Thompson, the house went up for auction and was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Jackson Fowlkes whose family owned the home for over fifty years.

Today it is the home of Corrie and Iulian Bobe.

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 Walking Tour, Book 1983, 1992, 2005, 2016