Situated at the southwest corner of Halifax County, midway between the city of Danville and the town of South Boston, the Calvary Rural Historic District encompasses 844 acres of pastoral agricultural landscape interspersed with small homestead farms. Owned and tobacco farmed for three centuries by members of the Williamson family, the district today retains vernacular dwellings, tobacco barns, cemeteries, a church, a former general store, and a former schoolhouse reflecting historic development from 1839 to the mid-1960s. The Calvary Rural Historic District is significant for its close historical association with the Brightleaf tobacco industry and for the quality and diversity of its domestic and agricultural resources, which embody the once-common daily activities of households and farms in the rural Piedmont region.