A Strange Occurance At...Red Alley Railroad Crossing?!

In the early 1920's, the old west end of Danville was just beginning to come into it's own. By old west end, I'm not referring to the Old West End Historic District, but rather to the area around Averett. Forest Hills was just beginning to come into being, and Virginia, Carolina, College Avenue area was experiencing a housing boom. Howeland Circle was just being created, and Ballou Park Shopping Center was still nearly half a century away. Many of the streets we know now didn't exist as they do today, and others had completely different names.

In 1925, the area opposite Ballou Park on West Main Street was nothing like it is today. While we all know the half-empty shopping center, what my generation doesn't realize is that that land was once a baseball park. Indeed, Ballou Park Shopping Center rests atop what was once known as Schoolfield Baseball Park, and before it was even a baseball park, it was the city fairgrounds. Actually, it wasn't until the 1960's or 1970's that Ballou Park Shopping Center came to be.

What did exist, in a way, is the road known today as Wooding Avenue. Obviously (for Danville natives), Wooding Avenue is named after former mayor, Harry Wooding. But that was not always so. I've yet to pinpoint the exact time of the name change, but it was once known as Red Alley. One of the Sanborn Fire Insurance Company Maps lists it as Ferguson's Alley, but the newspaper archives do not support that fact. This street, and the train crossing it includes, were the center of attention in January of 1925. For it was at this railway crossing that three people meet their fate within two weeks.

Wooding Avenue as it is today.

Red Alley was a narrow street that ran beside the fairgrounds to the train tracks where, as it is today, the road is angled to where you begin to cross. If you've ever driven across these train tracks, you probably know what I mean. You basically turn slightly as you cross the tracks. Once across the trains into what was then Almagro Village, the road was wider and known as Sixth Avenue.

Curve at the crossing.

It all started on Sunday, January 18, 1925. Around 7:00 pm, a man by the name of C. P. Warf was struck and killed by a southbound train about 100 yards from where Red Alley met the train tracks. His body was discovered by the conductor of a passing freight train and authorities were notified once it reached Stokelands. The man worked in a cloth room at Dan River Mills. It was pretty much an open and shut case. The man was either crossing the tracks or walking along side of them, got hit by a train, and died. Life, in Danville, did not stop for it.

The very next night, another man died roughly 100 yards from where the body of C. P. Warf was discovered. It was not, however, until Tuesday morning when an African-American named John Anderson was riding a horse on Red Alley and discovered the body. Authorities were notified and rushed to the scene from both Danville and Schoolfield. Schoolfield authorities ascertained that that man, completely covered in mud, had tried to drag himself out of the mud puddle. No identification was found on the man, but a pint of whiskey was. Foul play was not suspected because he had money in his pockets. The belief was that, due to the depth of the mud puddle, the man had either drowned in it or succumbed to the cold. It was later discovered that he had indeed drowned, and that the liquor was not involved as the whiskey flask was filled to the stopper.

The body was removed from the scene to F. W. Townes and Son to be prepared for burial where a note, postmarked in Danville and signed by a Mrs. Betty Jones and family was found. The body remained at F. W. Townes and Son Funeral Parlor for nearly 12 hours before the body was identified. Hundreds of people visited the funeral parlor. Many people thought they recognized the man, including a hotel manager who believed the man had inquired about the price of a room. Two people were so convinced of the identity of the man that they had to contact relatives to make sure their kin was still alive.

Finally, Tuesday afternoon, a man named R. C. Davis was able to positively identify the man as his brother, Thomas Davis who was delivering a load of tobacco to Danville. R. C. Davis trekked to Danville to inquire about his brother after having not heard from him in a day.

Two days after Thomas Davis' body was found, a horse dropped dead in its tracks at that very spot.

Then, once again, on Thursday night another man was killed at the Red Alley crossing. Lee A. Ligon, a local merchant, was struck by a train. His body was not discovered for some time later, when two African-American men were turning their car around in the alley and discovered the body as their headlights swept past. Authorities arrived on the scene in short order. Schoolfield, being closer to scene arrived first, followed by Danville. After questioning and releasing the men who discovered the body, authorities quickly deemed the man had been struck by a train, presumably the Piedmont Limited or possibly train number 46. His body was thrown clear of the tracks, his skull knocked in, and his wrist and leg broken by the impact.

The next morning, it was learned that Mr. Ligon had travelled to Red Alley alone that night. His son explained that he had gone to meet with William Cobb about "the endorsement of a note and other business matters." His son also disclosed that his father had been "unduly nervous about himself and about business matters." It seems that Mr. Ligon's health had been in a decline in the weeks and months prior to the incident. Just a few days before his death, Mr. Ligon confided to a friend that he was suffering from a bout of insomnia and he heard a roaring in his head "like a train," and again to another that he thought he was "going crazy." Mr. Ligon had also been trying to straighten out his business affairs; settling debts from a previous business endeavor.

It was this incident that led Schoolfield and Danville police officers to begin as thorough an investigation as possible.

The last story intrigues the Psychology major in me. It is evident that Lee Ligon was suffering from a deep depression. The roaring in his head, the insomnia, and straightening out his affairs clearly indicate that he's in a deep depression and was possibly considering killing himself. I'm not saying that he intentionally walked in front of a train, but we'll never know what thoughts crossed his mind as he traveled from his home on Grove Street to Red Alley that evening. It's never mentioned how he arrived there that evening, so there's no telling if he took a cab, or a street car (which I believe Danville had at the time, will check later and edit this as necessary), or if he walked. If he walked, it's possible he walked along the train tracks that evening. Mr. Ligon never arrived at his meeting with Mr. Cobb that night. It's likely he never heard the roar of the train through the roaring in his head, but how he didn't see the headlight of the train remains a mystery.

What we do know, however, is that  during the final weeks of January, 1925 Danville was plagued with mysterious deaths that all centered around one location: Red Alley railroad crossing.

Hand Laid Bricks: Unearthing the Past

I forgot to mention that there will be no specific chronology in this blog. Unfortunately, the time for chronographing my efforts to find the build date of my second mother's house is long past. So my entries on it will be as things come to me and as I remember them.

My latest discovery at my second mother's house comes from a bout of super impulsiveness and a five year desire. Before I get to my discovery, though, I have to give you a little background on the backyard as that is where the discovery was made.

When my second mother moved into the house, there was an old, rotting stump in the almost in the middle of the backyard. At the time, she had three dogs: Brownie, Dougie (pronounced Doogie), and Draco. Draco was the youngest of the three, and went on a digging spree for a period...much to my chagrin as I had to mow the yard and did not appreciate twisting my ankle. That is, until one day when I came across three bricks that Draco uncovered in his digging spree. Just three bricks, in a line, about a foot and a half away from the old stump.Over the next few years, I'd occasionally take a shovel and just press stick it onto the ground, trying to figure out what the bricks were. There was a dip in the ground next to the three Draco uncovered, but I was wondering if maybe there had been a walkway or something. Over the next few years I would occasionally take a shovel and walk a straight line back from the three exposed bricks trying to find how far back they went. Still, I was never allowed to actually dig anything.

Late last fall, I was clearing out grass that had grown in front of the basement door and accidentally uncovered a brick walkway leading away from the basement door. I asked for permission to continue uncover the walkway if I could find somewhere to put the displaced dirt. That particular walkway only went about three feet as it curved into the present stairs leading from the back door into the backyard. It was three bricks wide, and was obviously laid into the ground by hand. The were, as I found them, perfectly level and seemed painstakingly laid. 

Hard to see, but there are old bricks still with a coat of surface dirt, but you can clearly see how deeply they had been buried.

The next Friday I returned from a particularly bad day at work (I was staying with my second mother while working a temp job in Chapel Hill) and borrowed an axe from a friend. I had tried taking a chainsaw to the stump about a month before, but I didn't want to dull the chain by going into the dirt. Armed with what I assumed was a decent axe, I went to town on the stump. Apparently, the axe was duller than a butter knife. Still, momentum prevailed. Slowly, but surely, and with the assistance of the hatchet I used six years earlier, I began to break through roots.

Ok, so what? I started to get the stump out and then it came out, right? Hell no! That thing put up a huge fight. There were places that actually sparked when I hit them with the tools. By the time the sun began to set, the stump was nearly root free. So I grabbed two shovels and began to try to leverage it out, only to find more places that needed to be cut through. Finally, around dusk, I had the stump broken free of all but the tap root. I had also managed to break both shovels. So, being the MacGuyver want-to-be that I am, I went to my car and got my jack. I stuck it under one side of the stump, and began to jack it up. I placed some pieces of cement, rocks, and bricks and braced where I had jacked and moved to another place.

Finally, around 6:30 I had the entire stump raised into the air; suspended only by the tap root. After hours of cursing at the stump, trying to rationalize with it (yes, I went so far as to say "don't you want to join everyone who ever enjoyed you? Don't you want to join the rest of your body?") I was on the verge of giving up. Exhausted, thirsty, and ready to just give up forever I walked over to where I originally jacked it up, grabbed two roots, and pulled. Then, nothing. I don't know if it was because I felt so weak or what, but I couldn't even feel myself pulling on the stump, until...creeeeaaaaakkkkk, creeeeaaaaakkkkk, CRACK. The stump flipped out of the hole.

Me: 1, Stump: 8 (6 years, two shovels)

Once a thriving three, now a garden decoration. No joke. It now sits like this in a garden.

Well, now that I had the stump out of the ground, I needed dirt to fill in where it had once been. So, the next day, I began to dig around those three bricks. What I found was more than I ever could have hoped for...well, other than money. I found a beautiful, hand-laid brick walkway that led right to the back stairs. The reason why I could never trace it before? It curved. I also couldn't pin point anything because the three that Draco uncovered were just three bricks behind each other, unlike the rest of the walkway that were three bricks wide!

My friend, and son of my second mother, who took took pottery classes at Guilford College and is amazing with clay identified the bricks as handmade, low-fired. Someone, sometime, made these bricks himself (I'm assuming it's a male given the likely hood that these bricks predate 1900) and then made a pathway out of them. Some had quartz and feldspar showing. Others, a purple hue indicating a high sulfur content (if I recall).

Since uncovering the bricks, I have completely removed them from the ground in small groups, put sand below them for drainage, and reset them. I also modified the area at the bottom of the stairs to make it match the width of the stairs (see photo). Currently, bricks have been set on top of the ground to extend the walkway a little further and then into a round patio (pictures to come later).

I added a fourth row at the base of the stairs to make it match the width of the stairs.

There is no telling where this walkway once went or exactly why it was buried. My best guess is that years of grass clippings and leaves buried the long forgotten walkway. The same thing happened to slate stepping stones at my old house.

Moral of the story: if you have stepping stones or a painstakingly made walkway: bag your grass clippings or at least make sure to clean them!

The Schoolfield-Kemper Road Area Connection

It is a well known fact by all Danville natives that Schoolfield existed as its own entity until the 1950s -- 1953, if I'm not mistaken. That was the year that the city of Danville was finally successful in annexing the village from Pittsylvania County. It was not, however, for lack of trying. Danville tried for years to annex the mill village from the county. After all, there's an economic boost in them thar mills! The problem with annexing Schoolfield came from the city's unwillingness to agree to the county's terms.

Before you can fully understand the terms which the city ultimately agreed to, you have to realize the geography of the city at the time.

For many years, the city ended at the south bound train tracks. Across the train tracks was a village known as Almagro. Almagro was a primarily African-American community. In many ways, Almagro Village was much like it is today, sans DCC, although Danville Military Institute (DMI) occupied part of the area where DCC is now.

In 1953, when Danville tried once again to annex Schoolfield, the county agreed on the condition that Almagro Village also be annexed by the city. Given that this was during the pre-Civil Rights era, it was quite a proposal to make.

Thus, in 1953 Danville extended itself past the train tracks and finally gained the much coveted Schoolfield Mill.

What's in a Name?

When researching a house, the easiest way to get information is from names. If you know the names of past occupants, you can find out almost anything. Almost anything meaning you can easily find detailed family histories, but not necessarily useful information pertaining to the house. If you're really lucky, former occupants will have repeated graffitied the house in some way.

In the case of this house, it was done repeatedly. Writings on the basement wall that are not entirely useful and carvings in the brick posts in front of the house yielded the names of former occupants.

Basement Wall

Betty, Susan, Mommy

 

 

Robert Grasty, the son of a former owner

His name again, but carved in the bricks.

Through family trees, old census records, and newspaper articles I have discovered the relationship of all who carved their names into the brick, except for perhaps one. Robert, Louise, and Jimmy were all children of a woman who lived there in the 1930s and 40s. Craige, a neighbor. The name that baffles me, however, is Frank. Unless it is Frank Martin, who lived there in 1920, according the 1920 census.

But the name that has been the most fruitful was not carved into anything, but rather discovered buried in insulation in the attic: T. R. Perkinson. For six long years, that name plagued me. You'll recall from a previous post that the property being developed in the area was that of J. E. Perkinson. Well, on that map, the property opposite of my best friend's mom's house was listed as that of T. R. Perkinson. So why on earth was his name on a book cover in the attic, buried in insulation?! Why was it in the same place that I found an old trojan condom package, an empty pack of Liggett cigarettes, and a burlap sack?!

After six years, I think I got my answer. Thanks, in part, to the Danville Register archives, some time spent in the City Deed office, and my access to the Sanborn Fire Insurance Company maps. T. R. Perkinson, the brother of J. E. Perkinson and father of business partner T. R. Perkinson, Jr. did not build that house until between 1915 and 1920. I believe, if I recall, they purchased the lot in 1914. The cost? $10.00. The best part of that find, however, were the words "with all the love" written in the deed to the property.

The question is, where did T. R. Perkinson and his family live before they built the house? According to his obituary, he moved to the area in 1901 -- seven years before the area was annexed by the city. Another hint of his occupancy of that house came from another deed, which revealed that J. E. Perkinson began buying the land in that area in the late 1800s. The biggest hint, however, is entirely on speculation.

According to the 1910 census, there were three families living on Virginia Avenue at the time. While the house is technically on Carolina Avenue, the majority of that area was completely unsettled in 1910. The oldest listed name I could actually find for Carolina Avenue is, believe it or not, West Virginia Avenue. Of the three families listed, one was M. R. Perkinson, who I am assuming is related to J. E. and T. R. Perksinon based on the last name, and the fact that they were the first to own a house in the neighborhood (based on the 1910 census). The other, T. R. Perksinon, and finally a mulatto family by the name of Kernodle. 

 

The house in which M. R. Perkinson and family lived still exists today, and backs up to the alley alongside of the house in question. The house other two families, however, I can only speculate. By using the 1915 map of Danville by the Sanborn Fire Insurance Company, there are but two houses on Carolina Avenue. My second mother's house, and a small square house. So, given the way of the world in 1910-1915, I surmise that T. R. Perkinson lived in the house opposite of the one he built in the late 1910s, and the Kernodles lived in the house down Carolina Avenue which has not existed sine the mid to late 1910s.

A Mystery Unravelled and a Neighborhood Name Unearthed

All my life I've wondered: Why does Watson Street become Avondale Drive at Virginia Avenue. As I grew older, I became even more curious as to where Watson Street ended and Avondale began. Well, recently I found my answer. In the process, I also learned something that had long since been forgotten about that area.

Did you know that neighborhood actually has...or once had...a name? Carolina Avenue, College Avenue, Stratford Place, and Avondale Drive were called Avondale Park during their development in the 1920's and 1930's. But to explain how I learned this, and the origins of Avondale Drive, we have to jump back to the year 2005.

In the Summer of 2005, my best friend and I went to City Hall to see what we could find out about the house. We went to the records office where a few years early my best friend had a summer internship. Our efforts were fruitful, but only marginally. We were presented with a building permit from 1924, and a map of the lot. The map was titled "Avondale Park. Revised Map of the Property of J.E. Perkinson."

Flash forward six years. Using my mother's Ancestry.com account, I was able to access The Danville Register and the Danville Bee archives as far back as 1922, some of which documented the development of the area. Some of the articles mentioned the extension of Watson Street, which was to be called Avondale Drive.

The exact location of the change, however, was not known to me until this past fall. I learned about old maps by the Sanborn Fire Insurance Company which show road names, propety lines, and more importantly to my research: houses. The maps are drawn to a scale of 1 inch to 100 feet. The 1915 and 1920 maps of Danville both show the terminus of Watson Street at the intersection with Virginia Avenue. Thus, Avondale Drive begins just past Virginia Avenue. I would include a screenshot of the map, but I'm currently trying to decipher the copyrighting on the digital collection.

Researching a House

Nestled on a quiet street in an unassuming neighborhood rests a house unlike any other in the area. Situated on a cross street between one that is composed mostly of 1910's Colonial Revival four square houses, and another that contains Arts and Crafts bungalows, and with alley running alongside the property. This particular house, however, is different. Unless you know what you're looking at, however, the house is easy to overlook. Upon closer inspection, you'll notice the distinctly Victorian corbels (brackets) that adorn the roof line, the rectangular shape of the front of the house, and the positions of the 3 windows and front door that face the street. A stark contrast to the Colonial Revival across the street, the Sears and Roebuck house that backs up to it, and the brick house next door. Indeed, there is something special to this house.


In 2003, my best friend's mother (and my second mother) purchased the little house. It was not without it's charm, but at the time, to me, it was just a house. The speculation of the house being old, however, did not escape me. Especially since a year later I moved into an apartment just around the corner in an 1880s Gothic Cottage farmhouse.

The house my first apartment was in. Added onto in the 1920's to face College Avenue.

We were quick to speculate on the connection between the two houses. We knew, thanks to my landlady and Victorian Danville, Fifty-two Landmarks: Their Architecture & History by Mary Cahill and Gary Grant (an 18th birthday present from a friend) that the house my apartment was in was, indeed, a farm house that rested on a property once bounded by the Dan River and the Southern Railway. The first assumption was that, perhaps, the house in question was an overseer's house. We, at the time, assumed it was an old one-up, one-down farmhouse: one room upstairs, one room downstairs. But still, everything was a mystery. The title search had only gone back to 1934, and we were almost certain the house existed long before then.

The search truly began a year or so after she bought the house. I was tasked with doing something, I can't remember what, in the crawlspace. I grabbed a flashlight, opened the door and shone the light. As I entered, the light caught something way at the front of the house. And so I crawled. I crawled my way to the front of the house where I found a bottle. Not just any bottle, but a blue glass bottle labelled Rumford Chemical Works. Research indicated that it was produced sometime in the early 1900's. Not only did I find the bottle, but I noticed the shapes of the old foundation that indicated that the house was, indeed, originally a one-up, one-down.

And thus, the journey to find the true age of the house began...

The Beginning

My fascination with my hometown began as a child. Maybe it was the beautiful houses, maybe it was the sounds of the mills which I would hear late at night, or maybe it was because I was the grandson of the first president of DCC. Whatever the reason, I have spent years trying to learn more and more about the town where I grew up.

My first insight into the deeper history of Danville came in late elementary school/early middle school. I used to go to my father's office at the Chamber of Commerce where I found some file cabinets full of old newspapers, pictures, and other random things. I would spent entire afternoon reading newspaper articles on the Wreck of the Old 97 alone. But the one thing that truly stands out in my mind is finding a city plan book from, I believe, 1965.

Did you know that there was a proposed Olympic sized swimming pool for Ballou Park? Me neither...at least not until I read that plan book. I still can't picture where they would put it.

Speaking of Ballou Park, there is an interesting anecdote about the roads that run behind Linden Drive, Forest Circle, and to a lesser extent, Parkview Place (Forest Hills). The roads that are closed off, such as the one that runs past the reservoirs used to be well traveled roads. As a matter of fact, that's exactly why they are closed today. Until about 1980, people would spend their Sunday afternoons driving through Ballou Park. Residents of the houses that face the road (Herndon Place), and those whose houses backed up to it (Linden Drive, Forest Circle, and Parkview Place) would have to bear the noise of what was dubbed the Sunday motorcade. What was supposed to be a day of rest and relaxation for those people became a day of constant disturbance. Thus, they petitioned to have the roads closed.

The road in the park that runs behind my old house, after ~19 years of sparse use.
 

Where the road intersects with another closed road. The amount of grass has expanded year after year.

 
I learned this from my own mother, who grew up in the same house in which I grew up. And to a lesser extent, my father who told me that he remembered his first experience with it around the time he and my mother were married (August, 1980).

And thus concludes my first anecdote on the history of Danville.

My Little Town

Danville, Virginia: a small town situated on the Virginia-North Carolina border. Former mill town, tobacco market, and the last capital of the confederacy. Growing up, we all learned about the importance of tobacco, the fabric mills, and of course the Wreck of the Old 97. As we got older, we learned about the Civil War and the brief stay of the Confederate government in our humble town. As children, we knew we were home when we saw the "Home of Dan River Fabrics," we admire the old houses on Millionaire's Row, and wished to walk across the foot bridge between mills that paralled the Union Street Bridge. Those of us whose parents grew up in Danville might have picked up information on the more recent history of the town.

The footbridge between the White and Long mills. I don't know about anyone else, but all my life I had wanted to walk on that bridge.

I achieved my dream of walking on that bridge in 2006.

What we didn't learn, however, is the lesser known stories about our little town. There is a rich history hidden within the street and alleys that, over the years, has been lost. Stores that once existed are long gone, the names of neighborhoods have been forgotten, events and people have faded away with time.

In researching my friend's house, I have unearthed stories and information about Danville that I had never known before. Stories that have come from newspaper archives, books, and things I picked up when my father worked at the Chamber of Commerce.

The point of this blog is to document my attempt to find out how old my friend's house is, and also to relate some of the interesting information I have learned about the town in which I grew up. I will admit up front that some information is hearsay, some is learned from newspaper archives, and some is pure speculation on my part. The latter will most pertain to the research of the house, though. I will try my best to mention where I got the information, but I can't make any promises that I'll remember.