Off and on between 1906 and into the 1920s, Danville, Virginia was home to a Patent Medicine Man who styled himself as “The Great Nanzetta”. In the decades that followed his death, memory regarding the once well-known “healer” faded and became confused with another eccentric Danville character whose identity was equally as mysterious. She, too, was known as Nanzetta, but that was not her name. How she got it is unclear, but the most likely answer is that the nickname was simply given her because she bore so many similar characteristics to the Dr. John H. Nanzetta whose “greatness” was so loudly advertised decades before. “About three days a week,”…

Much of what follows is taken from the book, Five Sisters: The Langornes of Virginia by James Fox, a descendant of Phyllis Langhorne, younger sister of Nancy and Irene, and is a much more in-depth look at the family than we had space to discuss in the article on their Danville home, the Langhorne House, now a museum located at 117 Broad Street. The story of the Langhornes of Danville begins with Chiswell Dabney Langhorne, the family patriarch and father of the future Lady Astor and Irene Gibson famed for bringing Charles Dana Gibson’s illustrated model to life. Chiswell, known by his friends as “Chillie” (his name would have been…

Since our last post on Levi Holbrook, Jr., more valuable information has been sent our way by faithful and interested readers. Firstly, we’d like to offer a HUGE thank you to David Scott Kirby of Atlanta, Georgia who sent us the first three letters to Levi from Levi’s wife, Viola. Mr. Kirby has since sent us two more of these wonderful letters. We are so excited to have these treasures of Danville’s past. Thank you! Secondly, a reader in Richmond, Mr. Robert Kingery sent us a death notice for Levi Jr. The astute reader will remember our reference to Mr. Holbrook’s obituary published in the Massachusetts, New York, and New…

Daniel Alonzo “D.A.” Overbey came to Danville in the 1870’s from Mossingford in Charlotte County. Here he married Sallie E. Shepherd and lived with his mother-in-law, also Sallie Shepherd, at 131 (later 512 or 516) Wilson Street near the present-day intersection with Court Street. Wilson Street was a residential area at that time Two of three sons were born here – William Daniel Overbey in 1876 and John Edwin Overbey in 1886.  D.A. partnered in the Main Street mercantile firm of Overbey and Anderson, later Overbey and Swanson, during that time.  He also served as a City Councilman Sometime before 1896, D.A. remarried to Mary “Mamie” Echols of Glasgow and…

Recently, a reader and an Atlanta philatelist found our blog post on Dr. Levi Holbrook. Having discovered some letters belonging to Dr. Holbrook’s son, he passed them our way. While the son, Levi Holbrook, Jr. only lived in Danville a short time, his history is nevertheless interesting to us. In this post, we share with you the letters, as well as a little additional history on the son of one of Danville’s most important historical figures. It is generally believed that Levi Jr. was born in Danville, though existing records (we can find no birth record) place his birth in Westboro, Massachusetts (one record claims he was born in New…

One of the great resources available to Danville historians is Lee Wayland’s book If Streets Could Talk. One of the streets missing from Wayland’s book, however, is Jefferson Avenue. Perhaps, after all, the street was simply named after Thomas Jefferson. Though there were certainly Jeffersons associated with Danville’s established history, none of the candidates seem quite old enough to have earned the memorial, as the street appears, so named, on a map that dates from around the 1840’s. Interestingly, however, there were Jeffersons involved in the early days of the Old West End’s development. John Garland Jefferson was born on the 30th of November 1812 in Amelia, Virginia, to John…

For Brandon Adams, learning to play music was less of a choice and more of a cultural no-brainer. “It’s just what you did.” Everyone played music, and most people (such as himself) were largely self-taught. Brandon grew up on a farm in Lawrence County, Kentucky, where the two great pastimes were music and basketball. Near neighbors in Brandon’s hometown community were Ricky Skaggs and Keith Whitley. Brandon’s love for music was fierce. After high school he enlisted with the Army, and after being discharged he began taking music theory classes and learning the foundations of how to make and play—and write—music. He then moved to Nashville where he did some…