As the years went by, the hardware store’s business grew. The store carried more lines of goods. One of the lines was Westinghouse, which included appliradios, and many other products. It was about the time that Sam Davis went into the hardware business that Flue cured tobacco became the best kind of tobacco for Southside Virginia farmers to raise. This tobacco was cured by hot air from a wood burning furnace being circulated around the inside of the tobacco barn in tin flue pipes before making an exit to the outside.  Sam Davis met this need by setting up a shop in a warehouse to make flues. Then farmers began to burn kerosene or fuel oil instead of wood as wood became scarce. Also it was easier to control the burning of oil than wood. Of course Sam Davis started selling oil burning furnace. Sam Davis also started selling lumber and just about everything needed to build a house. The store was a small Lowes or Home Depot with additional lines added. The business met the need for new houses after the War.  You could get all the materials needed to build a house and appliances to furnish the kitchen and bathroom. The store even carried dishes and cooking utensils.

Let us go back to the story of Davis House. With his hardware store doing well Sam Davis Sr. felt that he could afford a nice house for his growing family. In 1911, Sam Davis bought two acres of land known as the “ Academy Lot”.  It was named for the boy’s academy which had stood there after the Civil War. The academy had burned in the late 1800's. Between 1913 and 1914, he built the house which stands at 801 West Street in today’s Clarksville. This house is now the new home of the Clarksville Regional Museum. The original house had four rooms and a. kitchen downstairs and four bedrooms upstairs and a wrap around porch on the front andanother porch across the back. This was in the days before air conditioning when porches received much use. A bedroom and bathroom with running water were added to the first floor when Sam Davis’s mother’s Phebe Thomas came to live with them after her third husband died. A water tower was built in the back yard to supply the bath room. Later, an upstairs bathroom was added.  A  sun parlor and a breakfast room were built using back porch space.Samuel Davis died in1952 and his wife Lavinia died in 1959. Samuel Davis Jr. “Doo” bought the home from his brothers and sisters and moved into the house in 1960. He added two additional bathrooms and a walk in storage closet          Sam Davis Sr’s daughter, Francis and her husband Clarence Sales had built a house next door. In 1952, their five year old son Clarence Jr was killed by an automobile in front of their house. Mrs Sales created the Clarksville Baptist Church Library in memory of his son. Clarence Sales Jr’s  death was only a week after the death of his grandfather, Sam Davis Sr. Tragedy was not unknown in the Samuel Davis family.  Samuel Davis Sr. and his wife had twins who died shortly after birth and their daughter Ruth Brownie Davis died at the age of ten in 1930.  Note that we use names “ Sam” and “Samuel” interchangeably.  Most people used “Sam”.After World War II Sam “Doo”Davis Jr  returned from service as a navy officer in 1945. Doo married Mary Ross Larson from New York State, Doo”s father’s health was beginning to fail. Doo took over management of the hardware business which was incorporated in 1946.  Doo Davis became President. Robert Jeffress an employee since 1922 was Secretary and Treasurer.  Long time employees Uley Blanks, James M. Riggins, and Clarence Sales were made Vice-Presidents. A large part of the reason for the success of the hardware store were the excellent employees. The employees included Willis Elis, Peyton Hayes, Pikey Mangum, John Cary, Jim Downey, and many others.In the 1980's, Sam Doo Davis and the other officers of the firm retired and the firm was purchased by Thomas Estes. He soon closed the Hardware and it is now an antique mall Today the Samuel Davis’s home is the new home of the Clarksville Regional Museum which will open soon. Come by and visit it.
Write us: 4811 Highway 58, Buffalo Junction VA 24529. Phone 434-374-8446.  E-Mail: mews@kerrlake.com.

 When Sam’s father died, the farm was divided among the sons of Oiver Davis’ sons by his first wife.  This left young Sam with no land since he was a son of the second wife. Rather than work for his half brothers, young Sam headed to the the town of Clarksville, VA to seek his fortune.  The main part of Clarksville had burned in the spring of 1893. We don’t know where young Sam got a job first but he is said to have gone  to work  as a clerk in a Hardware Store run by James E. Haskins Jr.  James E. Haskins Jr’s health was failing and he died in 1915.  Sam Davis had saved his money and  bought the business from Haskins and operated the business as Samuel Davis Hardware. His first hardware store was in the area of today’s State Farm Insurance building run by David and Janet Buchanan  on the corner of Virginia Avenue and Fifth Street.  Davis’s hardware did well and needed more room. For his store to be able to grow, Sam Davis  in 1909 bought land and a new building was erected at the corner of Third Street and Virginia Avenue.

This new store was located in what is the Ladies’ Department of Hite’s Department store today. At the same time, a clothing store run by Finis Tyler Willis known as F. T, Willis Dry Goods was opened. Willis’s store is today the Men’s Department 0f Hite’s.  Hite bought the building many years later and formed Hite’s Department Store. Both the Hardware and the Dry Goods were in one building which was erected by 1911 with a wall between the two stores.  Part of the wall was removed after Linwood Hite bought the building many years later.   Sam Davis also took on a new business around 1910. He became the Ford Dealer in Clarksville selling the popular Model T Ford Automobile. We believed that the Ford dealership business stayed at the State Farm Insurance location for several years.
In those days, a hardware store sold a lot of different items much like a Lowes or Home Depot today.  The hardware also sold Gasoline and Kerosene engines which were  new items that were in demand to thresh wheat, grind grains, pump water, run an electric generator and many other machines. Then selling the new automobiles seemed to be a nice way to make a little more profit. Ford’s Model T car became the way to go. Selling a dozen or so cars a year would be a nice business.  It wasn’t as easy as Sam thought.  First of all you had to teach the farmer, who bought the car, how to drive it.  Few people knew how to drive.  Then you had to have a mechanic to fix the cars you sold. The new drivers were running the cars out of the narrow roads into trees, fence posts, foot deep holes in the road, and into other cars.  The sale of cars was much greater than he expected. After a few years Sam Davis had to decide.  Was he going to be car dealer or hardware dealer?   He gave up the Ford Dealership and stayed with the Hardware Business.  Davis sold the Ford Dealership to a man named Clements who had married into the Moseley Family.  The Moseleys then sold the car business to Sterling Carrington
To house his growing hardware business, Sam Davis bought a new lot just south of his lot next to Willis’s Dry Goods in 1918. This is the building that is now Beth Baker’s Antique Mall of today.  There was a smaller