Southern Kith and Kin

ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01429 9934 <f) ■ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 https://archive.org/details/southernkithkinr02scar Southern Kith and Kin A Record of My Children’s Ancestors VOL. II THE DAVIS FAMILY and THEIR CONNECTIONS By JEWEL DAVIS SCARBOROUGH (Mrs. Dallas Scarborough) Box 608, Abilene, Texas PRINTED BY ABILENE PRINTING COMPANY ABILENE. TEXAS COPYRIGHT. 1952 BY JEWEL DAVIS SCARBOROUGH. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PUBLISHED-1952 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 1206053 ACKNOWLEDGMENT AND THANKS Family histories are never finished, and though this one was started more than forty years ago, it is still unfinished, and has many omissions, and perhaps mistakes, but may serve to inspire members of the family to send in data they may have, which will help to complete the record. Thou¬ sands of letters have been written, in preparation of this history, many trips made to far away inaccessible places and cemeteries, and hundreds of interviews held with in¬ terested people. Court Records have been searched, old wills 3 read, and Bible Records unearthed which had been forgot¬ ten for generations. Some letters have been answered promptly, with accurate information, while others have failed to reply or if they did reply, gave meager data. To those of you who have been gracious in your replies, and generous in sending in your family records, the Author is eternally grateful, but it is to your own descendants that you have made this contribution of time and effort, and it is a tribute we all should pay to those worthy ancestors of ours who paved the way for our liberty, our prosperity and our happiness. It would be impossible to mention all of the people who have made this history possible, but my deepest debt of gratitude is due to Eleanor Davis McSwain, and her husband, Horace L. McSwain, who have never faltered in their co¬ operation. In spite of her many duties as a mother of two children, a busy housewife on a busy farm, a hard-working public school teacher, while still attending classes at Mercer University, with an A rating, Eleanor Davis McSwain has never said no to any research job I have asked her to do. Others who have given invaluable help are Herschel V. Davis, of Columbus, Georgia, R. J. Dixon of Richland, Mrs. Charles W. Murray of Miami, Britton Ware Davis of Tif- ton, Mrs. A. C. Richardson of Montezuma, and the follow¬ ing who are now deceased, Mrs. J. T. Murphy of Wharton, Texas, N. A. Davis of Marshall, Texas, Mrs. Felix A. Todd of Muskogee, Oklahoma, and Mrs. George Washington Tharpe of Macon, Georgia. The work has been tedious and arduous, and though it may be imperfect it contains records that have been rescued from oblivion, and will serve to make your ancestors and mine emerge from the past as living personalities, whose virtues we would do well to emulate, and whose achieve¬ ments deserve to be honored and remembered. Abilene, Texas. November 15,1952. This History is affectionately Dedicated to My best beloved far away Cousin, and Faithful and Efficient Collaborator, Eleanor Davis McSwain, Without whose unbounded enthusiasm, encourage¬ ment, and endless research, this book might never have been finished. ELEANOR DAVIS McSWAIN FOREWORD WHEN I was a student in Wesleyan College my beloved history teacher was Mrs. Ria Burks, who never failed to remind me of the tremendous debt of gratitude Texans owed to Georgia for their courageous and patriotic assistance in the Texas Revolution. Some of my Georgia kinsmen were among those immortal heroes—the Bullocks, the Hansons, and the Aldredges—and I was determined to know more about them, not only from the records of Texas history, where they died at San Jacinto and at Goliad, but from the counties, and the cities in their home state. I wanted to know about their families, and how they lived, and where they were before the American Revolution. I think even my exacting teacher would be pleased with the research that I have done, for I am more familiar with Georgia rec¬ ords than I am with those of my own state, and in a roll call of Georgia names, I can nearly always place the counties from which they came, and tell you whether they were settlers from Virginia or the Carolinas. This modest record of mine is entirely inadequate to express the admiration and appreciation I have for these hardy, worthy, ancestors of ours, but if it serves no other purpose than to preserve their names for posterity, it will be reward enough for the labor, time and expense involved. The record is not perfect, but— “A man’s reach must exceed his grasp, or what’s a Heaven for ”. CONTENTS Chapter I John Davis, Virginia Revolutionary Soldier. Chapter II John Davis, Esquire and Rebecca Jones. Chapter III William Davis and Elizabeth Brown Gardner. Chapter IV The Gardners and Bryans of North Carolina. Chapter V Martha Davis and the Tharpes. Chapter VI Margarett Davis Summers. Chapter VII Elisha Davis. Chapter VIII Nancy Davis Tharpe. Chapter IX History of Stone Creek Church. Chapter X John Davis, Jr. Chapter XI David J. Davis. Chapter XII Mariah Davis Hill. Chapter XIII James McCormick Davis. Chapter XIV Benjamin Davis. Chapter XV Miscellaneous Records of Sw. Virginia. THE NUMBERING SYSTEM The numbering system in this volume is the same as that used in Volume No. I, and is very accurate. The original an¬ cestor, in this case, John Davis, Senior, has no number, but the children of each family are given numbers in the order of their birth, preceded by the number similarly given to each ancestor. The first figure of each number shows from which child of the original ancestor the person is descended, thus 1-1-1 for Mary L. Davis indicates that she was the first child of the first child of the first child of John Davis, Senior. In listing the children, I have followed the order of the wills, where the exact birth date was not known from other sources. The spelling in the early records, deeds, and wills has not been changed, though punctuation marks have been used when necessary for clarity. INTRODUCTION The following was written by H. L. McSwain, a Sur¬ veyor, husband of Eleanor Davis McSwain, who has been pressed into service, and whose characteristic humor was needed many times in the tedious preparation of this book: In the chapters following an attempt will be made to trace the lineage of our hardy Davis family. In going back into various generations it will be found that the country was new and that the older generations were on the move, seeking more and better lands. It will then become neces¬ sary to designate various members of our family by their geographical location. It is well then that our readers should know something of the early history of Georgia and have a basic knowledge of the formation of political subdivisions, and how counties and districts were formed. We would then suggest that you take a few moments and study “Halls County Map cf Georgia,” the original of which may be found in the Office of Secretary of State (Archives and History Division), the Capitol, Atlanta, Ga. Please note that the earliest settlements were west of the Savannah River and east of the Oconee River. These early counties were not laid off according to any precon¬ ceived plan (that is for the smaller political subdivisions), as was later followed in counties to the west of Oconee River and in the Division of much of the west (Texas and some smaller States bounding it). In the older counties in¬ dividual tracts were taken up by the heads of families and very often the beds of creeks and ridge lines were taken as boundaries. Militia and voting districts would also usually be designated by natural boundaries. In some few instances, man made boundaries, such as roads, would be used as dis¬ trict boundaries. The South Carolinians accepted the Sav¬ annah River as a boundary because they believed that the width of the river and its adjacent marshes would prove to be sufficient barrier. Later the Federal government, by Treaty, acquired for the State of Georgia, all lands West of the Oconee River. In later years, being in a generous mood, Georgia gave much of this land to Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. (Legend states that many Carolinians had settled from Alabama westward and suggested to Georgia that such be done.) After acquiring all lands west of the Oconee River by Treaty, the Federal government gently (?) moved the Red Man West. However, some authorities lean to the theory that a Georgia Gubernatorial Election was in full swing and that the campaign Oratory so drowned out the war whoops that the Red Man moved of his own free will to seek a quieter country. In any event, after the Red Man vacated, the Governor of Georgia appointed a Surveyor-General with instructions to divide the lands west of the Oconee River into counties, districts and land lots. A further study of the map, “Hall’s Original Georgia Map,” will show the counties and districts so created, where some of our illustrious forebears have lived. Another inspection of the Hall’s Map will show that the counties as laid off west of the Oconee River were further divided to make new counties. Where new counties were formed, the nonenclature of the district and the numbering scheme of land lots were not changed. In legal descriptions a land lot such as “Land Lot No. 48, Land District 7, Baldwin County,” would, after the formation of a new county, be changed to read, “Land Lot No.

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