Halifax County is rich in historic homes.  In accordance with the Society Mission Statement to preserve historical information for dissemination to the public, the Society may be able to assist homeowners through the arduous process of documenting and helping to obtain the national recognition deserved of these homes.

Currently there are thirty-six county properties that have been listed on either or both the Virginia Historic Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places as well as five groups of homes and public buildings designated as “Historic Districts” in Virginia.

For additional information on the houses, please see An Architectural History of Halifax County, Virginia, published by the Halifax County Historical Society. One of the designated properties will be featured periodically and will include detailed descriptions and photographs of the exterior and interior, if available.

Walters-Moshier House

north main street, South Boston, VA

Circa 1915

(Special thanks to Dan Pezzoni, Architectural Historian,
Landmark Preservation Associates, for information in the following article.)

This circa 1915 Classical Revival home, located on North Main Street in South Boston, was built for prominent tobacconist, Charles W. Walters and his wife, Emma Staton Walters. The residence is included in a South Boston Historic District and is listed in the Virginia Historic Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places. Now owned by Reed and Nikki Moshier, the house was likely constructed by the African-American contracting firm of John H. Hamilton of South Boston.

C. W. Walters lived in Danville at the turn of the century and owned and operated four tobacco stemmeries in South Boston by 1907. (A stemmery is a facility for removing stems from cured tobacco leaves prior to further processing and shipping.) Charles and Emma Walters and their children, John and Annie, moved to South Boston and in 1910 rented living quarters on North Main Street. In 1913 Walters purchased a lot on the southeast corner of “Upper Main St.” and Moore Avenue, which the family considered a “most fashionable address.”

In 1922 Walters served on the board of governors of the Tobacco Association of the United States, a nationwide tobacco trade organization. His involvement in the tobacco industry coincided with the period during which the town of South Boston was evolving into the second largest Bright Leaf tobacco market in the country.

The Walters-Moshier House is an example of up-scale, in-town residences built for South Boston’s Bright Leaf tobacco barons. When the Classical Revival style first appeared in the area in the 1890s, the influence was minor at first, mostly represented with classically inspired porch supports. However, by the mid-1910s when the Walters-Moshier House was built, the style appears to have been the dominant one for larger homes constructed in South Boston.

The two-story Walters-Moshier home has a defining feature of the style—a front portico with monumental classical columns. The portico, which engages a one-story porch that extends across the façade, also shields a second-story balcony. The front entry, contained in an outer surround with fluted Ionic pilasters, has a transom and sidelights of beveled glass with an Art Nouveau-inspired design. The second-story balcony entry also has sidelights and a transom, but with plain surrounds.

Although the house is not strictly symmetrical and reveals lingering influences from the preceding Queen Anne style (such as the prominent bowed bay on the north elevation and the smaller, off-center bowed bay inside the front porch), it still adheres to classical characteristics. The interior, with its two-room deep center-passage plan, is true to the style and includes ornamental features such as a central hall, stair colonnade and mantels in a variety of classically-inspired forms.

In the backyard are two buildings, a one-story secondary dwelling and a smaller house which was probably a smokehouse. The house and its outbuildings stand on an approximately half-acre town lot shaded by mature deciduous and evergreen trees. Recumbent concrete lions, a distinguishing feature enjoyed by all who pass by, flank the front walk which leads to a low concrete retaining wall along the Main Street sidewalk.