A wide and handsome brick walk welcomes visitors to this eye-catching house as it has for more than a century. This Italianate-style structure, cited as EXCELLENT in Russell Wright’s 1971 Architectural Inventory, was among the earliest of numerous houses built on acreage of “Fitzgerald’s Plan”, by the local architect-contractor T. B. Fitzgerald. It was the first home of B. F. Jefferson, one of Danville’s most prominent and influential citizens of the late 19th century. Jefferson and Fitzgerald were sometimes-business colleagues—having been two of six founders of the Riverside Cotton Mills (now Dan River, Inc.) in 1822. Like Fitzgerald too, Benjamin Franklin Jefferson was Involved prominently in the building trades, notably the firm now known as Danville Lumber Company, and R. I. Anderson and Company. Later he joined WE. Gardner and Company, and was affiliated with A.W. Traylor, his neighbor at 725 North Main, in Traylor’s hardware business and bank. He was a prime mover in the organization and erection of the old Calvary Methodist Church at 924 North Main, and later in life after his move to West Main Street, he was a devoted member of Mt. Vernon Methodist Church. Ma young man Mr. Jefferson moved from his native Alexandria, Virginia, to Danville, where he met and married Miss Sarah Frances Cousins. It was two years after her death in 1898 that he sold his North Main Street home and moved to a still newer house on West Main Street, now the site of Ascension Lutheran Church. Only a few years after that he built a new brick residence at 401 West Main. Following his death In 1913 this house became the property of his second wife, the former Mrs. Belle Bustard. 

In September of 1900 the old Jefferson home was purchased by William Thomas Davis, a Southern Railway engineer who lived herewith his wife until 1946. At that time the property was purchased by another Southern employee and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Clyde H. Franklin. The Franklins sold the house In 1966 to Ava Sutphin Dlckenson, a resident of Greensboro, North Carolina. In 1982 the house was conveyed from Mrs. Dickenson’s estate to Sam and Babette Price, who began renovation of the aging structure. Two years later the present owner, Mr. Al Harris, purchased the house from the Prices and over the past five years has transformed this landmark structure from apartments Into a comfortable residence. Mr. Harris who owns and operates flowers by Davis next door, has brought to the house his professional design talents which are evident throughout the structure of about a dozen rooms.