In comparing local church histories it is safe to assume that this striking Romanesque-inspired building has the longest record of use by its congregation of any church in the city. Some portion of the present structure has been occupied continually since 1868. This church originated—as did nearly all methodism in nineteenth century Danville—with the erection in 1834 of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, “a small frame building with a steeple and a bell.” Two years earlier the Rev. Mr. Hammett while visiting Danville had urged local Methodists to organize a church. Funds were subscribed for a church building and a lot on the corner of Wilson and Lynn streets was…

Mount Vernon United Methodist – 107 West Main Street Reproduced with permission from Victorian Danville – Fifty-Two Landmarks: Their Architecture and History © 1977 Since before the turn-of-the-century, Mount Vernon Methodist Church has stood at the prominent local crossroads of South and West Main streets. Members feel there is a spiritual symbolism in its location. Its parent church on Lynn Street, completed in 1872, was organized after members of the old church on Wilson street left to form Main Street Methodist Church. By 1894, members of Lynn Street Church were convinced of the need to move from an area being engulfed by business to the growing western end of Danville.…

The congregation that would eventually become Moseley Memorial Methodist Church got its start in the home of E.Y. Smith on Cabell Street. It was here that E.G. Moseley, a prominent layman in the church, began conducting prayer meetings. When those meetings were moved from Tuesday Evening to Sunday afternoon, they began to take in a larger audience, and so Mr. Moseley arranged for the use of the old Trowbridge Factory on Cabell Street. Having acquired the use of the building free of rent or other fees, he consequently had funds to put into the repairing the building and putting it into serviceable condition. 105 people attended the first official Sunday…

First Baptist Church – 871 Main Street Reproduced with permission from Victorian Danville – Fifty-Two Landmarks: Their Architecture and History © 1977 Established on June 28, 1834, the Baptist congregation was the second denomination to organize a church in Danville. Twenty-five charter members under the leadership of Elder Joseph S. Baker met temporarily in a building on Craghead Street until a permanent meeting place was acquired on the corner of Patton and Ridge streets, near the site now occupied by the downtown branch of the First Virginia Bank-South [ed: presently PATHS pharmacy]. This area later became known as “Baptist Hill” because of the church’s proximity to and alignment with the…

Episcopal Church Of The Epiphany – 781 Main Street (formerly 777) Reproduced with permission from Victorian Danville – Fifty-Two Landmarks: Their Architecture and History © 1977 Built between 1879 and 1881, the Church of the Epiphany is rated Danville’s most outstanding structure in the city’s Architectural Inventory. This fine stuccoed Gothic Revival church presents a gable end front to the street with a corner tower that rises in three levels, as defined by the insets of the buttressing and the openings, to a slender octagonal spire. All windows and doors use the lancet arch, and the nave windows alternate between buttressing. The simple sturdiness of the design and interesting play…

According to Gary Grant in Victorian Danville, it was in December of 1826 that William S. Plumer, a Presbyterian missionary, arrived in Danville.  Plumer, a native of New Jersey, was sent by the Missionary Society of the Synod of North Carolina.  He was to establish a local church.  Missionary efforts twenty years earlier had failed to result in a permanent congregation.  A year after his arrival, Plumer was ordained as the first pastor of the small congregation of 34 members. Prior to 1828 meetings were held at the Danville Academy building, located at the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Loyal Street.  In that year a building was erected on Jefferson…