-----Original Message----- From: Josephine Lindsay Bass [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, May 28, 2000 10:52 AM To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] Subject: Was the Davis family in Society Hill, Darlington Co., SC???? Of the many Davis emigrants to America the family which later became most notable is that of Evan Davis, Samuel Davis and Joseph Davis; three brothers who emigrated from Cardiff, Wales, about 1730. Evan Davis and Samuel Davis landed at Philadelphia: Joseph Davis was drowned on the voyage. Samuel Davis went to what was then the Middle West. Some time after 1761, the exact date not being known, Evan Davis emigrated from Pennsylvania to Georgia. He married while still in Pennsylvania, Mrs. Mary Emory Williams, a widow. Her father was Joseph Emory. By her first marriage this lady had two sons, Daniel Williams and Isaac Williams, both of whom were soldiers in the Revolution. It was due to their participation in the war that their young half-brother, Samuel Davis also joined the forces of the Revolution, being sent by their mother to join them. Evan Davis and his wife (Mary Emory Davis), had at least one son, Samuel Davis, mentioned above, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1756. This Samuel Davis, who was in the Revolution, was the father of President Jefferson Davis of the Confederate States of America. Mrs. Metta Andrews Green, the well-known historian of Georgia, has made close study of the life and residence of Evan Davis. She writes: "Evan Davis moved to Georgia from Pennsylvania and settled about forty miles above Augusta, so says Mrs. Davis in the life of her husband. " 'The place forty miles above Augusta' is in Wilkes County four miles south of Washington. It belongs to the estate of Mr.Gabriel Toombs. Before Mr. Toombs died I had a long talk with him. I was at this time writing something of Jefferson Davis' ancestry. Mr. Toombs told me that he himself was the third owner of the place from Samuel Davis, the father of Jefferson Davis. The deeds are all recorded here in our court house. "I also found that Samuel Davis fought at the Battle of Kettle Creek: His name is certified to by General Elijah Clarke. Evan Davis died and is buried on the place now owned by the estate of Gabriel Toombs. The spot was pointed out to me. I have visited it many times. There is a large Indian mound near by. The place I speak of is on Beaver Dam Creek, near the Washington branch of the Georgia railroad. "If records filed in the court house and human testimony count for anything, there can be no doubt of these facts. I wrote to Mrs. Davis about the matter and I have her letter agreeing with my statement. I also visited her in her apartment in New York. I was at the time very interested in collecting names of those who fought at Kettle Creek, and when I found Samuel Davis' name, I began to study the Davis' family history, also the genealogy. The Kettle Creek battle alluded to was fought February 14, 1780, at War Hill. General Toombs used to speak of Wilkes County as the "Hornets Nest" of the Revolution. It was more than that. Like the battle of King's Mountain, it was a turning point. Savannah had been captured and the British commanders were making plans to aid the Tories in possessing Georgia. To this end Colonel Boyd, a British officer, was secretly employed to organize the Tories in South Carolina and had crossed the Savannah River and entered Wilkes on his way to the British army, expecting to join the British forces which had possession of Augusta. This would have given the British commanders a sweep of the Southern country. The Royal Governor had been restored to power in Savannah. Thus the importance of the Kettle Creek battle. Samuel Davis was at the siege of Savannah, and as he had raised and was captain of a Georgia company during the war, it is more than probable that he had, with him under General Clarke at Kettle Creek a portion of his company. As his father, Evan Davis, lived in Wilkes, the Samuel Davis company must have enlisted most of its men from the "Hornets Nest" and were "Wilkes boys". Col. Elijah Clarke lived to realize his fond hopes to see Augusta again under the American colors. The State of Georgia as a reward for his services, gave him a commission as a major-general and a handsome grant of land. And South Carolina gave large land grants to Samuel Davis. CAPTAIN SAMUEL DAVIS Samuel Davis, the Revolutionary soldier, son of Evan Davis the Emigrant, and his wife Mary Emory Davis, was born in 1756, in Pennsylvania. He died in 1824 in Mississippi. As stated in foregoing paragraphs, he was a Captain in the Revolution, having raised a company of Volunteers in Georgia. Later he joined the Continental Army and served in South Carolina as well as Georgia. He was in the Battle of Kettle Creek and in the Siege of Savannah. For his services the State of South Carolina granted him a thousand acres of land (in what is now Kentucky) and he moved to settle upon that property. There his famous son Jefferson Davis was born. From Kentucky Samuel Davis moved to Louisiana, and again in 1811 he moved to Mississippi where in 1824 he died. Captain Samuel Davis married in 1782, Jane Cook, a daughter of Mrs. Sarah Simpson Cook, who was herself a daughter of Samuel Simpson, said to have been assistant Quartermaster of the Pennsylvania Regiment during the Revolution. His father was Thomas Simpson and his father was John Simpson, who emigrated from Scotland to Ireland and from Ireland to America, settling in Pennsylvania as did many of the Scotch-Irish people. Samuel Davis and his wife, Jane Simpson Cook Davis, had ten children, namely: 1 Joseph Emory Davis. 2 Benjamin Davis. 3 Samuel Davis, Second. 4 Isaac Davis. 5 Anne Davis. 6 Amanda Davis. 7 Lucinda Davis. 8 Matilda Davis. 9 Mary Anne Davis. 10 Jefferson Davis. JOSEPH EMORY DAVIS 1 Joseph Emory Davis, born 1784, died 1870; was a lawyer and planter in Mississippi. His young brother, Jefferson Davis, spent much time with him and in the splendid library of the home absorbed much of the wealth of knowledge for which he was noted in after years. Joseph Emory Davis married Elizabeth Van Benthysen and had one daughter, Mary Lucinda Davis, who married in 1837, Dr. Charles Jouett Mitchell, of Vicksburg, as his first wife. 2 Benjamin Davis, Second, was a planter. He married Cynthia Campbell (Moably) and died leaving children. 3 Samuel Davis, Second, was a planter. He married Lucy Throckmarton. They had one daughter, Helen Davis, who married ----- Keary, and had Robert Keary, Samuel Keary, Pauline Keary and Ellen Keary. 4 Isaac Davis married Susan Guerthy. They had one son who was General Joseph Emory Davis, Second. 5 Anne Davis married Luther Smith, and had a daughter, Anne Davis Smith. AMANDA DAVIS 6 Amanda Davis, married David Bradford. They had four children, namely: (a) Jefferson Davis Bradford (who was an enginer in the United States Army; (b) Lucy Bradford (who married Dr. Charles Jouett Mitchell, of Vicksburg, her first cousin's widower, as his second wife and had at least one daughter --- Mitchell, who married Eli Joseph Ganier. They had two sons, Lincoln Mitchell Ganier, who is unmarried and lives in Chattanooga, and Albert Francis Ganier who lives in Nashville and married Ann Eastman, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Roger Eastman of Nashvile. Their two sons are: Albert Francis Ganier, junior, and Roger Eastman Ganier. (c) Elizabeth Porter Bradford, who married Mansell II, son of Mansell White I, in the United States. Their children were Mansell White, III, who is unmarried; Lucy White, who married Clement Penrose Wilkerson and has four children; Mary Bradford White, who married Ringgold Brouspears and had five children; Carl White (who married Mary Mitchell of Cincinnati, and had seven children, namely: Carl White, Second, who is unmarried, Elizabeth White who is a nun in the convent of the Sacred Heart, Nancy Miles White who married Charles Earl Johnson, junior, of Raleigh, North Carolina, and has a son, Charles Earl Johnson, Third, Charlotte White who married Robert Swepson Cowan, Second, and has a son Robert Swepson Cowan, junior, Mansell White, Fourth. Lincoln Mitchell White and Richard White who are unmarried); Albert Sidney Johnson White who married Ellen Tobin and has five children; (d) Elizabeth Parker Bradford White who married Edwin Rodd,, Nancy Miles White who married Thomas Helms Anderson and has two children); and David Bradford, Second, (who served in the Confederate Army. He married in 1838, Ada Eliza Poltenger). 7 Lucinda Davis, married William Stampes of Woodville, Mississippi. 8 Matilda Davis, died unmarried. 9 Mary Anne Davis, married Robert Davis of South Carolina. JEFFERSON DAVIS, PRESIDENT OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA 10 Jefferson Davis was the tenth child and the fifth son of Captain Samuel Davis and Jane Cook Davis. He was born in Christian County, Kentucky, June 3, 1808. He died in New Orleans, December 8, 1889. His father and mother removed from Wilkes County, Georgia, to Kentucky, shortly after the revolution owing to a grant of six thousand acres of land, a reward for distinguished Revolutionary service. Captain Samuel Davis, when his distinguished son was still small, moved again, this time to Mississippi. Jefferson Davis attended schools in Mississippi, St. Thomas College Kentucky, Transylvania University, at Lexington, Kentucky and he graduated from West Point in 1828, with high honors and served in the Indian Wars. In 1825 while an officer in the army he married Sarah Knox Taylor, daughter of General Zachary Taylor and Margaret Mackall Smith Taylor. Upon his marriage, Lieutenant Davis resigned from the army and retired to Briarfield, the plantation in Mississippi, which had been given him by his brother, Joseph Emory Davis.