Save the Fearn/Brodnax (Broadnax)/Walters Family Plantation

Descendants and friends of the Fearn Family of Danville, VA, Members of the Danville Historical Society, Preservation Virginia, and historians are very concerned about the future of the historic resources including the archaeological sites, historic building ruins and the cemetery located on the Ben F. Coleman Tract in Danville, VA that is slated for industrial development.

We are not necessarily opposed to development but believe that a solution is attainable that would save the highly significant historical resources on this property and allow the development of the tract to proceed.

Brief History

The Ben F. Coleman Tract is highly significant to Danville’s history. Many of Danville’s earliest families including the Fearn, Wynne, Dudley, Burton, Coleman, Harrison, Payne, Patton, Coles, Williams, Brodnax and Walters families are associated with the site or related to the early ancestors.

Not only is the history of these families important, to Danville, but also to the formation of the nation that became the United States of America. Additionally, on that site enslaved African-Americans lived, worked, and were likely buried in the Fearn Family cemetery. The archaeological data that undoubtedly exists at the site could shed new and significant information on enslaved people that lived in the Dan River region.