Billhead from Bryant Department Store in Chestnut Level from 1922

Along the foothills of White Oak Mountain there are plenty of remnants from the days before old country stores fell by the wayside. The drive along Route 640 passes through seven historic communities in Pittsylvania County: Chestnut Level, Spring Garden, Shockoe Church, Java, Riceville, Mt. Airy, and Renan. Beginning at Highway 29 as one turns onto Spring Garden Road, after a mile and a half the driver will pass through the community of Chestnut Level. The old Bryant’s Department Store stood until recent years at the junction of Chestnut Level Lane near the merchant’s stately home and served many years as the heart of the community. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, Letcher A. Bryant provided the community with everything from groceries and medicines to furniture, fertilizers, and coffins, as listed on surviving receipts. Situated roughly a hundred yards to the north, Carter Lodge #323 of the Ancient Free & Accepted Masons has welcomed members for more than a century, ever since its establishment around 1913 under Halcott Townes Carter. A USGS map of the Danville quadrangle in 1925 showed that the old Chestnut Level School stood on the north side of Spring Garden Road in what is now an agricultural field a short distance from the junction with Harper Lane. Details from a 1920s photograph appear to show a smartly built frame schoolhouse with at least two classrooms, a projecting entry room, and a portico with twin Tuscan columns on both sides of the entry way. It had about eight windows across the front and was painted a dark color with a light trim around the wall borders including the doors and windows.

After passing over Sweden Fork (originally “Sweeting’s Fork”) and traveling another mile-and-a-half, the road arrives at the community of Spring Garden. The former Spring Garden School–an unfortunate site–is now abandoned and has been subjected to vandalism over recent years. The building’s cornerstone was laid by members of Carter Lodge when the school was constructed in 1927. It served as a high school until 1967 when schools were consolidated, and continued as an elementary school. At some point the large brick school was expanded and operated until sometime before 2000. Across from the school, Cox’s Store also supported local families for many years. The older Cox’s Store building was moved a few yards to the west where it still remains behind a more modern convenience store. On the west side of the 640 following the junction of Mac Road sits the old Conway Store. As a textbook example of an old fashioned country store, it remains in good condition with its long sun-bleached wood siding. Continuing north, the area across from the Game Reserve Road was the farm and final resting place of Joseph E. Anderson, a very early merchant in Spring Garden in the 1830s and decades afterward. A business directory from 1885 showed that the community had a physician named Dr. James Ferguson, a wheelwright named J.R. Jennings, a blacksmith named P.A. Murray, a justice of the peace named George W. Jones, and a constable named Charles C. Terry.

Further north, Shockoe Church has been a community center since it was organized in 1803. Several merchants have operated in the Shockoe vicinity near the junction of Slatesville Road, including J.J. Shields & Company, John J. Motley’s Store, and more recently Russell East’s Store. Upon crossing Highway 57, Route 640 becomes Java Road and the Shockoe community continues. There are many interesting old gravestones at Shockoe Missionary Baptist Church. Across the road, in the shade of a huge oak tree an old building remains like a sentinel for the agricultural fields behind it. The two-story structure, finished in white siding with blue trim, today bears the sign of Shockoe Lodge #244 for Prince Hall Masons. In an earlier era, however, it housed the Shockoe School where local boys and girls received their education. An 1881 business directory listed a local physician named Dr. William Boyd and a dentist named R.C. Terry.

Shockoe Lodge #244, formerly Shockoe School, across from the Shockoe Church Cemetery