In the 18th century, the Dan River was the heartbeat of what was to become Danville.
In his book, “Pittsylvania County: A Brief History,” Larry Aaron included a chapter on a burgeoning community along the Dan River.
Though Danville is now a city separate from the county, it was a “community within Pittsylvania County” in its early days, Aaron points out in his book in which he also called the Dan “the heartbeat” of what was to become a city of 43,000 people.
The river played a vital role in the city’s formation; it was “its reason to be,” according to Aaron’s book. To bring home his point, Aaron included passages from a book by Beatrice Hairston, “A Brief History of Danville, Virginia, 1728-1954.”
“‘The history of Danville is the history of its river,’” Aaron cited from her work. “‘A river makes a town what it is; molds its life and the life of its people, the kind of work they do and the kind of pleasures they enjoy.’”
In the 1740s, William Wynne, who came from a prominent family in Prince George and Charles City counties, moved to the part of town now called the River District, said Lawrence McFall, local historian and author of “Danville in the Civil War.” The district includes Craghead and Bridge streets and lower Main Street — what for years has also been known as “downtown Danville.”
Wynne received 340 acres — through a land grant — below an area called “Great Falls” on the south side of the Dan River, according to McFall’s book.
“Together with his sons, he eventually owned more than 3,500 acres,” McFall points out in his book. “He established a ferry on the river in the location that the Main Street Bridge [now the King Memorial Bridge] later crossed.”
Wynne was a friend of William Byrd, who conducted the survey in 1728 to determine “long-disputed boundary dividing Virginia and North Carolina,” according to McFall’s book.
Settlers began migrating to the area between Virginia’s tidewater and the western mountains following Byrd’s survey, McFall wrote.
“This region, known as the Piedmont, possessed soil that had qualities conducive to the raising of tobacco,” McFall wrote. “Rivers provided a convenient way of getting the crop back to the Tidewater area where the state inspected it for its quality.”
Wynne moved his family to the area in 1753 and built his home near the falls, Aaron wrote. Eventually called “Wynne’s Falls,” it was wilderness through the Revolutionary period, with a path from the south across the river and disappearing into the forest 150 feet above the riverbank on the other side, “where today’s Main Street crosses the river,” Aaron wrote.
John Barnett, who owned land on the river’s south side, put in a ferry and later placed a bateaux (a small, flat-bottomed rowboat) in the river for trading purposes, Aaron wrote.
“The increased trade prompted further development,” Aaron wrote. “The tradition is that the first building was a blacksmith shop, which included a tavern and a store.”
A new town is born
According to McFall, commercial traffic volume created the need for tobacco inspection in the immediate area instead of sending it down the river. In 1793, 15 Pittsylvania County citizens petitioned the state legislature for a town next to Wynne’s Falls, Aaron wrote.
The town of Danville was established on Nov. 23, 1793. From September 1795 to September 1796, Danville exported 135,000 pounds of tobacco and an additional 70,000 pounds were in warehouses awaiting shipment, according to McFall.
By the early 19th century, community members began to recognize the river’s potential for power, according to McFall.
Gen. Benjamin William Sheridan Cabell, a veteran of the War of 1812, moved to the community and helped form the Roanoke Navigation Company around 1816. He built a canal for boat traffic around the river’s falls, McFall wrote.
“The canal also provided water power to run several mills later constructed along its length,” McFall wrote. “These included a flour mill, a corn mill and a linseed oil mill, followed in 1828 by a cotton mill.”
In the 1820s, Danville had 59 buildings along Main Street, including a newspaper, schools, a tavern, a hotel and a Masonic Hall, according to Aaron.
Danville during the 1820s “was primed for a period of prosperity,” Aaron wrote.
“Increased trade from dredging the rivers, building bridges and canals and securing the state inspection site for tobacco duly increased population, resulting in more tobacco factories opening, as well,” Aaron wrote.
More tobacco made its way to Danville from the Danville and Fincastle Turnpike (later called Franklin Turnpike), from Lynchburg Stage Road to the north and south from Caswell County, North Carolina, by the middle of the 19th century, according to McFall.
“These highways allowed tobacco to reach Danville more easily and spurred the town’s growth,” McFall wrote.
Economic depression, fire and flood
The town had close to 500 residents by that time, and was a hub for tobacco leaf marketing and manufacturing, McFall wrote. The industry was so strong in Danville that the community’s manufacturers survived the Panic of 1837, according to McFall. However, the town’s four tobacco warehouses closed and state inspection stopped, according to Aaron.
Danville suffered through an economic depression for the next 20 years, Aaron wrote. A fire destroyed most of the town’s commercial district in 1847, and in 1850, a flood washed away the toll bridge across the river, according to Aaron.
Maj. William T. Sutherlin, with help from other businessmen, built a wood-covered bridge that lasted most of the 19th century, Aaron wrote. It was a predecessor to the Main Street Bridge, now the King Memorial Bridge.
Danville’s population grew to 2,000 by 1850, but only four houses were in North Danville. However, the north bank of the Dan River had a flour mill that was built in 1831, according to Aaron.
By 1854, Patton, Ridge, Craghead, Wilson, Loyal and Lynn streets had been laid out, according to Aaron.
“Within a few years the town extended as far up as present-day Holbrook Street,” Aaron wrote. “The weekly Register began publishing, and in 1859, Averett was established downtown from its predecessor, Roanoke Female Institute, the latter having evolved from the Baptist Female Seminary years before.”
In 1854, another fire brought severe losses downtown, Aaron wrote, citing a notebook kept by Danville coroner Jacob Davis. The fire burned the area between Craghead Street and the toll bridge and both sides of Main Street, southside. The list of business shows how much the town had grown, Aaron pointed out.
“Businesses destroyed by fire were several dry good and grocery stores, an apothecary store, a barbershop, butcher shop, several lumber houses, a boardinghouse, a hotel and a confectionary shop, and W.T. Sutherlin’s tobacco factory lost hydraulic presses and fixtures,” Aaron wrote.
Getting connected
In 1856, the Danville and Richmond Railroad — an idea from Whitmell P. Tunstall — connected Danville to eastern markets, Aaron wrote. The railroad “secured its pivotal place in Danville’s economy by making possible the rapidly expanding growth that accompanied its presence,” McFall wrote.
“In the four years prior to the Civil War, the town’s businesses prospered,” McFall wrote. “Land sales soared as property values increased. Residents of the county moved to town and swelled the population. They witnessed the emergence of Danville as the economic and commercial center of Southside Virginia.”
Also in 1856, Sutherlin built the second-largest tobacco factory on the corner of Lynn and Loyal streets. It was a prison during the Civil War and the building still stands today.
The war did not hamper the town’s economy, which flourished, McFall pointed out.
“Danville became a major economic beneficiary of the Civil War,” McFall wrote. “Tobacco manufacturers in Richmond, Petersburg and Lynchburg moved their entire operations to Danville, where they found a safe haven behind the battle lines.”
