Sites of Interest
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The Bright Leaf Trail
Perhaps you’ve seen them, the tobacco leaf medallions embedded in the sidewalk around the Old West End and on Holbrook Street and Broad Street. They are the result of the collaborative efforts of Joyce Wilburn, creator and guide of the area’s three guided walking tours, and Fred Meder, local preservationist, neighbor, and owner/operator of Outdoor Designs Inc. The leaves mark the paths of the Millionaires Row Tour and the Holbrook Street Tour. They are numbered and lead to the gathering area on the side lawn of the Danville Museum of Fine Arts & History where the tours begin and end and where the granite information signs are located. During Fred’s…
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Green Hill Cemetery, 761 Lee Street
The following is transcribed by permission from Victorian Danville – Fifty-Two Landmarks: Their Architecture and History © 1977 Mary Cahill and Gary Grant Green Hill Cemetery is one of the most peaceful and picturesque spots in Danville. Its handsome funeral sculpture, interspersed among large evergreens and shade trees, is typical of municipal cemeteries in the Romantic layout of the mid nineteenth century. Often called Lee Street Cemetery, its name, though suggestive of the pleasing and tranquil names Victorians gave their burial grounds, actually came from the man who owned the land, Dr. Nathaniel T. Green. It was Jacob Davis’s Notebook, 1855-1877 which gave the leads as to when the…
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Sutherlin Mansion, 975 Main Street
William T. Sutherlin was no more than thirty-six when his imposing new house was completed. At this comparatively young age he had already proved his acumen in local civic and business affairs. He had served as alderman and mayor, and was recognized as a leading banker, tobacconist and entrepreneur. He was a delegate to the state convention that passed, albeit reluctantly, the Ordinance of Secession on April 17, 1861. reluctantly, the Ordinance of Secession on April 17, 1861. Sutherlin did not serve in the active military, but was appointed instead as Quartermaster of Danville’s depot (Sutherlin rose to the rank of major), his duties included oversight of supplies such as…
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The Old Grove Street Cemetery
Most of what we know about the Grove Street Cemetery is owing to Mary Mackenzie Mack and her 1939 book (reprinted and currently for sale at the Danville Museum of Fine Art and History) “History of the Old Grove Street Cemetery, Danville, Virginia”. Mary was born in Danville on the 2nd of November 1874 to John Graeme and Flora Isabel Lapham Mack. John was a newspaperman who had once worked for the Public Works Department as caretaker for the city’s cemeteries. It is through him that Mary perhaps gained her love and deep respect of local history and the grounds in which the city’s founders were buried. Mary was a…
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Doyle Thomas Park, Green Street
The green space in the 800 block of Green Street was originally part of the large estate of Dr. Nathaniel Terry Green. Dr. Green was a native of Halifax County, born on the 10th of March 1800, the seventh of eight children born to Captain Berryman Green and Nancy Terry Green. He married Anne Colquhoun in 1818, and the couple had ten children. Dr. Green came to Danville at an early age and studied medicine under the elder Dr. Paxton and taught school under Levi Holbrook at the Danville Male Academy. He later went to Philadelphia to obtain a formal medical training and returned to Danville to practice medicine with…
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Missing Memorial to the “Dignity of Southern Womanhood”
Did you know this monument to the memory of Eliza Johns is actually the base to a now missing statue? Though it took almost fifty years to erect, is stone and concrete plinth is all that remains of the statue that once stood here, the culmination of the hard work and dedication of Dr. Benjamin Brooke Temple and his wife. Dr. Temple was born on the 22md of March1839. He had just turned 22 and was “studying medicine in Paris when the storm broke, and he hastened home and joined the colors”. One of eight sons born to Benjamin and Lucy Lilly Temple, he joined the cause of the Confederacy…
