GEORGE DAVIS.
Chicago: The Bowen Publishing Company, 1901.
The Davis family is a very old family in America and has been very proimnently identified with the development of the country as well as being conspicuous in business, political, social and religious life, and has also shown their patriotic spirit in times of war. There is much that can be said of this family in connection with the development of America and the prominent part they have taken.
Charles Davis, founder of the American branch of this family, was born in Wales, about the year 1700, and in 1724 sailed from Wales to America and first located in Pennsylvania. Here he married a Miss Metcalf and they settled in Chatham county, North Carolina and reared a family of eight children, viz.: John; Thomas, who moved to Grayson county, Virginia, and married a Miss Knox; Sallie married a man named Cox; Tamar, also married a Cox; Retty married a man named Vestal; Hannah married a Mr. Moffett; Mollie married a Mr. Moffett; and Lydia married Mr. Doam, of whom Colonel Carter Doam of Civil war fame is a descendant.
John Davis, son of Charles, was born in Chatham county, North Carolina, and there married Mollie Chamness, and they became the parents of eleven children, as follows: Charles; Joseph; William; John, the grandfather of Jeff Davis; Thomas; Sarah married Joshua Pickett; Mary married George Shugart; Tamar married Job Ratliff; Hannah married Isaac Barker; Elizabeth married Enoch Barker; and Rachel married William Pike.
William Davis, son of John and grandson of Charles, was also born in North Carolina and married Ann Marshall, and their children are as follows: Jacob married Lucy Rose; Joseph; Mary married Stephen Jones; John married first Ruth Hadley and second Lydia Davis, whose first husband was murdered in Wayne county, Indiana; Simon married Abigail Freeman; Rebecca married Ebenezer Adams; Rachael married Joshua Bond; Ezra married Nellie Hadley; Mark married Rebecca Osborn; and Anna married Ezra Williams.
Joseph Davis, son of William and Ann (Marshall) Davis, was born in North Carolina, Chatham county, October 3, 1785, and May 31, 1807, married Catharine Farmer, who was born January 15, 1787. They removed to Ohio in 1808 and settled in Montgomery county and lived there until 1823, then removed to Wayne county, Indiana, where they passed the remaining years of their lives, he dying January 16, 1876, and she September 9, 1870. Their children were named as followed: Nathan, born in June, 1808, married Hannah Moore and died January 1, 1870; William married Abagail Wright, removed to Howard county, Indiana, and there died in 1861; Mary became the wife of David Baldwin and died in Hamilton county, Indiana; Anna was twice married, first to Newton Baldwin and second to Daniel Thornburg; George married Charlotte Baldwin; Hannah married Daniel Thornburg; John married Caroline Chamness; Edom W. married Keziah Bales; and Lewis died in 1840. All of the above named are deceased except Edom W. and George.
George Davis, son of Joseph and Catharine (Farmer) Davis, was born in Montgomery county, Ohio, May 12, 1818. Here he obtained an education such as could be obtained in the pioneer days there, and as the country was new and being developed into fine farm lands he was also obliged to work as only those who were there in those times can explain. Here he passed many long days in the hardest kind of work until 1848, when he came to Grant county, Indiana, and purchased one hundred and sixty acres of land which had been entered by his uncle, John Davis, and the old patents or deeds to this land are now in the possession of our subject. He gave one acre to school district No. 1, of Liberty township; also gave a site occupied by the Friends church and now owns two hundred and twenty-nine and one-half acres.
On December 15, 1841, George Davis was united in marriage with Charlotte Baldwin, a daughter of John and Charlotte (Payne) Baldwin, and they have ten children born unto them, viz.: Liza Ann, born September 15, 1842, married Calvin Scott and died January 24, 1875, leaving four children, John H., George D., Oliver James and Calvin H., all of whom have been reared by their grandfather, the subject of this sketch; William Frank is a resident of Fairmount and married Eliza Rich and has four children, Luther, Cordia, Stella and Clora; Emily married Levi Scott and reared a family of thirteen children, as follows; Malissa married James Luther, Alvin married Emily Luther, Irvin married May Haisley, Arthur, deceased, Lillie, of Saginaw, Michigan, Lyda married Charles Wilburn and lives in North Carolina, Charlotte, of California, Alonzo, of California, Clellie, Louis, Harrison, and two died in infancy. Mary married John Dougherty, and has one child, Cora Alice; Malissa, deceased; Oliver S. married Eva Jay and has four children, Herman, Harvey, Ida and an infant, deceased; Nathan F. married Hannah Bessom and resides in Tennessee, and she has seven children, Myrtle, a missionary in Mexico, Joseph, Nellie, Levi (deceased), Lawrence, Lloyd and Mary; J. Freemont is deceased; Catharine married E. Nail and has seven children, Anna, Charlotte, J. Edgar, Nora, Georgia, Lena and Emma; Joseph E. married Ellen Dougherty and had three children, Stella, Eva and Mary, the last named being deceased; Malissa, the fifth child, died of diphtheria when eleven years old.
Charlotte Baldwin, the wife of George Davis, was born and reared to womanhood in Guilford county, North Carolina.
Nathan Farmer, the maternal grandfather of George Davis, was a noted gunsmith during the Revolutionary war and made and repaired a great many of the guns used in the service. He married Hannah Woodard, a daughter of Catherine Best, who came from Germany in 1752; she is the maternal grandmother of our subject. Mr. Davis is a man of high moral character and has at all times opposed the use of intoxicating liquors as a beverage, having united with the Washington Temperance Union in 1842 and has been true to the obligations taken at that time. So emphatically is he opposed to the use of alcohol that he will not use it for the purpose of dissolving camphor gum.
His first vote was cast for William Henry Harrison and he remembers well when Andrew Jackson was first elected and when the Republican party was formed in 1856; he supported its nominee for the presidency and still affiliates with that party.
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