Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History, also known as the William T. Sutherlin Mansion and the Confederate Memorial, is a historic home and museum building located at Danville, Virginia. It was built for Major

William T. Sutherlin William Thomas Sutherlin (April 7, 1822 – July 22, 1893) was a tobacco planter, distributor, industrialist, Confederate quartermaster and politician. He served as mayor of Danville, Virginia (1855-1861), as its delegate to the Virginia Se ...

in 1857–1858, and is a two-story, five-bay,

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...

ed building in the

Italian Villa A Roman villa was typically a farmhouse or country house built in the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, sometimes reaching extravagant proportions. Typology and distribution Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD) distinguished two kinds of villas ...

style. It features a one-story wooden porch, a shallow hipped roof surrounded by a heavy bracketed

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

and topped by a square cupola ornamented with pilasters and a bracketed cornice. While at the house, which served as his temporary residence from April 3 to April 10, 1865, on April 4, President

Jefferson Davis Jefferson F. Davis (June 3, 1808December 6, 1889) was an American politician who served as the president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives as a ...

signed his last official proclamation as President of the Confederate States of America. On April 10, Davis was at dinner at the house when he learned of the

surrender at Appomattox The Battle of Appomattox Court House, fought in Appomattox County, Virginia, on the morning of April 9, 1865, was one of the last battles of the American Civil War (1861–1865). It was the final engagement of Confederate General in Chief, Rober ...

. an
''Accompanying photo''
/ref> The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1969. It is located in the Danville Historic District. The house is owned by the city and was used as the Danville Public Library from 1928 to 1972.

This mansion, after being sold to the city, became a “whites only” public library from 1928 to 1972. In the summer of 1960, Black students would decide that they wanted the library to be integrated, and staged a sit-in. To resist desegregation efforts, the library would be shut down, and would not open again until the fall of 1960. While the library now had to allow Black people into the library, it did not have to provide comfortable accommodations; and the library re-opened without chairs.

Museum

Established in 1974, the museum focuses on art, history, and culture in the Dan River region. Exhibits include the historic home itself with period furnishings, five art galleries, and a permanent Civil War exhibit.

References

External links

Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia Libraries on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia Italianate architecture in Virginia Houses completed in 1858 Houses in Danville, Virginia Tourist attractions in Danville, Virginia National Register of Historic Places in Danville, Virginia Historic district contributing properties in Virginia Historic house museums in Virginia

Art museums and galleries in Virginia Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Common ...

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