Dr. Thomas E. Lucas House
Ann, Pearl, and Jonathan Lucas House
Felix Cannon House
Lynn Widener House
Sharon Clyde Dutton House
700 West Main Street
It was built in 1868 for Dr. Thomas E. Lucas, who served in the House of Representatives and also as a mayor of Chesterfield. Later owners, Lynn and Susan L. Hastings Widener, named the house Foxmoor Manor.
Katherine Ward Rivers Braswell: Miss Ann Lucas, Miss Pearl Lucas (both were teachers), and Dr. Jon Lucas lived in the house. After their deaths, a niece and her family came to live here; they were Cannons.
Elizabeth Ann Gaddy Rivers: Dr. Thomas E. and Dorothy Hanna Lucas were the original owners of this house. They had three children–Ann, Pearl, and Jonathan (Jon). None of them ever married, and they lived in this house until their deaths–Ann in 1949, Jon in 1960, and Pearl in 1965. Their niece, Dorothy Lucas Cannon, inherited the house, and there might have been a nephew, whose last name was Ross, who was a joint heir. The records I've seen are not clear about this. I know that Katherine Ward said that the Cannons came to live in the house after Miss Pearl died. I guess this was Felix and Dorothy Lucas Cannon. They had three children– Dorothy, Helen, and Eleanor. In 1990, Eleanor Cannon Hudnall, Mary L. R. Moss, and Barrie C. Ross–all descendants of Dr. Thomas E. and Dorothy Hanna Lucas–sold the property to Lynn and Susan L. Hastings Widener. The Wideners sold the property in 2007 to Sharon Clyde Dutton and moved to eastern North Carolina.
When I was in grammar school, it was a tradition for the children in some grades to march up the street to this house to sing to Miss Ann Lucas on her birthday. She and Miss Pearl had both been teachers.
I also remember riding in the delivery truck from my daddy's grocery store to take groceries to the Lucases. Miss Pearl would count out the cash into my hand, and I would skeedaddle out that front door because there was a skeleton hanging in one of the front rooms! I didn't even have to be the one who went in, but I guess it was a perverse pleasure I took in getting scared out of my wits.
The Lucas property wrapped around behind the Presson property at 708 West Main Street and then ran to the corner at West Main Street and Teal Street. The Presson property was actually enclosed within the Lucas property. It's possible that Sam Presson bought the lot to build on from the Lucas family, but I don't know that. Even though there is apparently no separate address for the corner lot, it would obviously be designated as 700 West Main Street. Each time the Lucas property has changed hands, the inheritance or purchase has included this lot, and to my knowledge, there has never been a structure on it.