Two famous Danville, Virginia Girls

Envision a girl from Danville, Virginia marrying the richest man in the world and being the first woman in England’s parliament. And she accomplished this a year before American women had the right to vote. These sisters became the most famous ladies of their time.

Nancy Witcher Langhorne’s father Chriswell Dabney Langhorne lost most everything that he owned during the Civil War. He married Nancy Witcher Keen in Pittsylvania on December 20, 1864, while the War Between the States was still raging. Then in 1873, the year that Nancy was born, he brought his family from Lynchburg to Danville. “Chillie,” as he was known by friends is credited with creating the auctioneer’s Gregorian chant and the “Danville System” of selling open tobacco on the warehouse floor by auction.

The family lived in a house at the corner of Main and Broad Streets in Danville. In all there were eleven children born, “all unwanted,” as Lady Astor liked to say. Nancy liked to make shocking statements, so this was not necessarily her real belief. Concerning her years from 1919-1945 in the House of Commons, some Englishmen said that she had a “cheerful lack or respect for any and all.”

Nancy once had a conversation with Sir Winston Churchill: "If I were married to you, I'd put poison in your coffee." Churchill replied: “If I were married to you, I would drink it."

Nancy and her sister Phyllis, who was eleven months younger, both married “hard drinking millionaires” at a time “when no self respecting Virginia girl would go north” to suffer“ humiliation by the Yankees. After their divorces, Nancy and Phyllis left and had their horses shipped to England.

Nancy’s said that her oldest sister had "married well enough, but to her lively sister her life was sluggish and sleepy." The next oldest married Charles Dana Gibson whom was a young artist making $60,000 a year in New York. He had originated the famous “Gibson Girl” drawings in 1890, five years before he met Irene Langhorne. His widely publicized drawings of beautiful women in stylish clothing set the style of fashion for that time.

After her divorce Nancy was faced with choosing a new husband. “I must do better than Irene,” she said. “I must have money, and lots of it. Money is power. I want to do like Alva Belmont, and make myself felt. And I must have money to do it. And I shall never marry a man unless he has barrels of it.”

Bobby Shaw, his first, had $10,000,000 and Bobbie W. Goelet has his $50,000,000. Or she could become Lady Revelstoke, with a temptation of $50,000,000. Then there was William Waldorf Astor’s son, Waldorf who was worth $200,000,000. So, Nancy picked the richest man in the world for her new husband. Her sister, Phyllis, picked for her next husband Bob Brand an Oxford scholar who was said to be (maybe), the wisest man in the empire.”

Nancy came back to Danville for visits in 1922 and 1945. When she did in 1964, a Confederate flag given her in Danville on her first return trip draped her casket.