The Question of Samuel Davis

A Tale of Two Samuels

This is going to be confusing – that’s why the original mistakes were made in the first place. I will try to lay all this out as clearly as I can, starting with a simple narrative. But please understand that narratives are worth NOTHING unless they are footnoted, supported by documents that prove relationships or the probability of relationships. Most of what you find on the internet is NOT proven. But it’s presented by people who make stories out of their guesses, and who couch the stories in language that convinces you that the writer certainly does know these things for sure.

Most of the writers, however, do not know these things for sure. And the ones who do have true research and documentation to back up their stories should be considerate enough to include their sources. You should always demand documents. Demand proof. Don’t just collect stories, no matter how satisfying they may seem. Fiction is fiction. What we want in genealogy is the truth.

The basic story I offer you is this:

The Rev. Chesley Davis who preached in Providence Church after 1810 in Abbeville, South Carolina (and in Siloam Church later) had several children: Samuel, Daniel Susannah, Littleberry, Gabriel, Nancy, Hepzibah, Beulah and Jesse – oldest among them, Samuel Davis. Samuel married Mary Sample Pulliam, widow of Benjamin Pulliam in Abbeville (along the Saluda River) and with Mary, became administrator of Benjamin’s will and co-guardian of Mary’s three children, Wiley, Willis and Elizabeth.

Soon after this, he and Mary also became the gdns of William W. Davis children, still in Abbeville: John B, Sarah, James, Lewis Wesley, Judith E and Elizabeth Davis.

And soon after that, Samuel and Mary, Samuel’s sister Nancy and fam, and his sister Hepsibah and fam and John B Davis with Elizabeth Pulliam, his wife, and Wiley Pulliam and likely Jesse Davis and maybe others all moved out to an area of Lafayette, Mississippi that was later to be called “Little Abbeville.”

Samuel, the son of the Reverend Chesley of Abbeville, never went to Greene County, Alabama as far as we can tell. He and his sibs and children all went straight to Lafayette, Mississippi pretty much right after the Rev. Chesley died.

Perhaps most telling, Samuel and Mary’s oldest son was named Chesley.

The job here is to prove the above story, distinguishing between the Samuel Davis of Sumter, Alabama who has been repeatedly, but without documentation, indicated as the son of Chesley Davis – and the Abbeville Samuel Davis who seems far more certainly, after careful research, to have been the true son of the Reverend Chesley Davis.

There are many Samuel Davis entries in the South Carolina censuses. The name is hardly rare. And there were a handful of Chesleys in the state over the early decades of settlement. The trick is to make sure we know which Samuel and which Chesley we are actually focusing on.

So to specify: we will first identify our Chesley Davis. His son, Gabriel Washington Davis, amazingly left a rare and brief history of his Davis line:

Canton Madison County, Mississippi, October 22, 1879

God has permitted me to live to see my seventy second birthday. I regret that I have done so little to advance the kingdom of my blessed master.

Genealogy

Our first parents emigrated from Wales, and was among the early settlers of Virginia. My line of the family early emigrated to South Carolina , settled in Newberry and Edgefield countys [sic]; my grandfather’s name as well as I know was Thomas Davis; my Father was Chesley Davis; he was about grown at the close of the Revolution war and later became an eminent [sic] Minister of the Gospel; the writer of this was borned [sic] in Edgefield; raised mostly in Abbeville District or county; Emigrated to Greene County, Ala in 1830; then? To Madison Co. Miss is 1844; where I now live at this writing.. –

I will the Bible to my oldest son George W. Davis during his lifetime and then to his second son John Gabriel Davis had lifetime so on to the oldest son through all generations if the male should run out or fail the regular line I will that this bible should decend to the youngest male kin of the name Davis; I trust that Bible will be taken care off [sic] by all who own or handle it, or that all will follow its presepts [sic].

Gabriel Washington Davis

Thanks to this, we have location. We can now try to trace the family through the census – (keeping in mind that the census is not famous for its accuracy). We also have the Rev. Chesleys’s will and probate in Abbeville, along with a file in the Real Estate Book of the Abbeville Court of Ordinary.

If we start with a search for this Chesley on the internet, we’ll turn up a lot of information. Not all of it is good. There are three “wives” associated with his name. The “first” one is Mary Canady. But I can find no source for such a marriage. No documentation is ever offered. And when the math is done – considering the timing of the Gorman marriage along with the age of Samuel, the oldest son, the idea of this first marriage seems unlikely, as will be demonstrated below.

But the marriage of Chelsey Davis and Susannah Berry Gorman is very well documented, as will also be demonstrated. There is a wife after her, Martha – Chesley’s last wife – who is mentioned only in the Real Estate Book mentioned above.

You will also find that people stick names into the lists of Chesley’s children that don’t belong there. We have no record of any children outside of the ones carefully listed in his will. And even there, we have a problem. Of his three living daughters, Nancy, Hepzibah and Beulah – many people only list two, considering Nancy and Hepzibah to be one girl with those two names. This is because, in his will, Chesley leaves out a comma between those two names; someone (who knows how long ago?) transcribed the will and proclaimed that there were only two daughters in the place of three.

And everybody has cut and pasted that info over the decades, perpetuating an untruth. Three daughters actually are in that sentence – in addition to the daughter, Susannah, who died before her father did (we don’t know when). There are other documents, one especially -the Abbeville Real Estate Book – which make it stunningly clear that each of the three women had a husband of her own. This is what makes a mess of family history, when one person makes a mistake or a mis-assumption, proclaims the mistake to the world – believing themselves to be utterly right – and nobody checks the facts to make sure.

In the case of Samuel Davis, this has also happened.

Sam Davis is hardly a rare name; you can’t just grab the closest one and assume he’s the one you are looking for. Chesley Davis did have a son named Samuel who is mentioned in all the estate docs – and in other people’s estate docs as well. If we take all the tiny bits of information and pull them together, we can come up with a probability built out of documented reports, and make a truly educated guess about the past.

The conventional wisdom has been this for years: since Gabriel Washington Davis and his brother Littleberry Davis seem to have moved into Greene County, Alabama, the Samuel Davis we see there is also one of that family.

But we have some problems right from the get-go: the first is that there is more than one Samuel Davis in Greene at that time. And the second – how do we know that Samuel Davis, the son of Chesley, ever actually moved down into Greene?

The assumption is not wild. But it is wrong. And to be fair, we could be asking the same questions about Littleberry – was he really the brother of Gabriel Washington Davis? Because there are also two Littleberry Davis in the same area. To make it more confusing, the probate for Littleberry who died in Sumter County in Alabama (I think it was 1846) was evidently sent to Choctaw County (can’t find it so far) so we don’t have a lot of information on the men named Littleberry Davis.

Generally speaking, there was a huge migration in the 1830s, people leaving areas like Abbeville, South Carolina – areas filling up with farms and people – and moving into Alabama and Mississippi, once native American lands (lost by “treaty”) where there was now room for settlement.

A Littleberry Davis is in Greene just after the 1830 census, then moved to Sumpter County, just west of Greene. This is where one of the two Samuel Davis in Greene also moved. I assume this fact to have convinced earlier researchers that these men must have been related. Kind of a leap, though.

Gabriel, on the other hand, moved from Greene County, Alabama into Madison County, Mississippi during that same period. He died there.

And evidence also places Chesley’s son, Samuel, in Mississippi.

So who was the Samuel of Sumter County, Alabama?

Sadly, at this point, I can’t tell you.

But I can tell you the story of Samuel Davis who went to Mississippi. And this is it: (raw documentation and facts will appear below the narrative)

The family of Chesley Davis is said to have started out in Newberry, South Carolina (started out in terms of the period of time we are focusing on). Gabriel reports that they then moved to Edgefield, where we see a nice snapshot of them, thanks to the 1810 census). Gabriel goes on to say that his own growing up had mostly happened in Abbeville. By 1820, we find Chesley’s family there in the census – Chesley, Littleberry, Samuel, and Gabriel all listed as heads of household, one son and some daughters enumerated in the household of the father – along with an older female.

The area of Abbeville these people lived in was along the Saluda river, in the very north eastern part of the county. There was a very tightly-knit community in that area, and when you read the probates and wills of all these people, you see that their lives fit together like pieces of a complex puzzle.

Chesley, early on – around 1810 – was a preacher in the methodist Providence church there. Later at Siloam.

In the federal census of 1830, on the page where we find Chesley’s family, there is one more Davis – but he is MY ancestor. He actually has an odd place in the stories of both these Samuels.

Chesley seems to have re-married by this point, as the age reported for the oldest female in his household in younger than the age of the oldest female in the house in 1820. However, since these early census named no names and the rules were to count every person who had been in that house on the day of enumeration – you never know if the person whose tick-mark shows up is a family member or a visiting relative or a servant or farm worker. So this younger woman could have been someone brought in to keep house. Or Chesley’s sister, or his past wife’s sister, or a wife of one of his sons, living with her father in law.

In other words, you cannot assume. However, the fact that Martha is mentioned in the Real Estate Book of the court of the Ordinary makes it probable that this is she.

We can’t even be absolutely certain that the Littleberry, Gabriel and Samuel on the page are actually related – (I shrug – I thought that my own ancestor, listed with them, must be part of their family 40 years ago and spent ten years trying to prove it – only to find I was wrong – but then, his name never appeared in Chesley’s will, while the other three do. Assuming that this Samuel is the right one). However, given ancillary records, the probability is very high.

One of the close neighbor families of these folks was the Robert Sample family. Robert had a daughter named Mary, and a few years before 1810, Mary Sample married another close neighbor, Benjamin Pulliam. They were married long enough to have had three children: Wiley, Willis and Elizabeth. Then Benjamin died young.

Now – you have to remember that, in this county, we have no marriage records, no deeds, no civil cases, no property taxes, no birth certs at this time, or death records – because fires happened in court houses easily in those days, lit as they were with candles, and then with gas lights. And then there was that pesky Civil War that was especially nasty in South Carolina. Birth and death records were not regularly kept in some parts of the country till after 1910.

What we do have are wills and probates. The will is written by the person who anticipates his death (rarely by a woman). The probate is a collection of the documents generated by the dividing of the estate, the paying off of debts, etc. These are great records for piecing a neighborhood together. But not everybody had a paper trail. And not every document is helpful.

In this case, as we read all the probates and wills of this area we find this: the Samples and the Chesley Davis group did a lot of interacting. Chesley published the request for administration rights of Mary Sample in her husband’s estate at Providence church – we know this because the document that says so is in the probate collection. Or even in the will packet. His signature is on the document. We also see both Samuel and Chesley at the estate sale, buying bits of things.

These names are also in close proximity on the census – but that is not always significant.

In the course of probate of Benjamin Pulliam’s estate, we find that Mary Sample is now referred to as Mary Davis, and that she has been appointed the guardian of her own children, together with the man who is now her husband: Samuel Davis.

Now Samuel Davis’ name is linked to Wiley, Willis and Elizabeth Pulliam. He has become, in fact, their step-father. Willis doesn’t survive till his majority. But Wiley and Elizabeth do.

At this point, there is another probate that enters comes into play: for a man named William W. Davis. This man happens to be the uncle of my relative who shared the page in 1830. William W. Davis was also not closely connected to the Chesley Davis line, as far as we can tell. Not that you need to know that, but it still amazes and puzzles me.

William W. Davis died in 1819, leaving children: John B. Davis, Sarah Ann, James, Lewis Wesley, Judith E and Eliza. At different points, John B Davis (child of William), Wiley Pulliam (son of Benjamin Pulliam, step son of Samuel Davis) and Samuel Davis each become the guardian of Elizabeth Davis, Lewis Davis, Judith E Davis.

Early on, Samuel Davis, the husband of Mary Sample, becomes the guardian for these children of William W. Davis. His name and Mary’s show up in the paperwork for William W. Davis’ estate.

If you are not now thoroughly confused, I’m going to tell you that almost everyone who has ever tried to figure out all these relationships has been thoroughly confused. I still have not figured out why William W. Davis chose Samuel. It may simply be that the two men were neighbors and friends who happened to have the same surname. Certainly, the several Wm. Davis children, the Pulliam children and the children of Chelsey Davis were well aquainted and connected by marriage, proximity and by law.

I give you all these names, because this circle of names are what makes this Samuel Davis unique.

To review – this Samuel Davis is found in close conjunction with the Reverend Chesley Davis who lived in Edgefield and who lived and died in Abbeville, South Carolina in the early 1800s.

The rest of the story:

After or around 1835 (I’m guessing just after Chesley’s death), a lot of the people we have discussed above move to Lafayette County, Mississippi. There was a huge migration of people from our area into Mississippi at that time; lands taken from the Native Americans by “treaty” had opened up for settlement, and especially the young people, finding the land in South Carolina now crowded, went west into Alabama and Mississippi to find places of their own.

The area that was chosen by the Samuel Davis who is most probably the Rev. Chesley Davis’ son was later called Little Abbeville, Lafayette County, Mississippi. This is because so many of our Abbeville folks ended up there.

http://msgw.org/lafayette/xlaftown.html

ABBEVILLE, Lafayette County, Mississippi, Located 10 miles north of Oxford, Abbeville was settled in the early 1830s by people from Abbeville, SC, who lived among the remaining Chickasaw with apparently little friction, being especially friendly with Chief Toby Tubby who operated a ferry on the Memphis-Oxford Stage Route. Except for 2 houses, it was completely burned in 1862 and slowly decayed when it’s importance as a river crossing diminished as the railroad grew. It is currently one of the larger communities in the county. the post office was established September 28, 1843 was still in use 1960. John B. Davis was first postmaster.

We find Samuel and Mary Davis there, and happily for us, they appear not only on the 1840 census, but in the 1850 census, where we can see the names of some of their children.

To that county also moved Nancy Davis, Samuel’s sister who married Tyler Logan. Also Wiley Pulliam, Mary Sample Pulliam Davis’ son. Also John B Davis, son of William W. Davis – one of the kids for whom Chesley’s Samuel was guardian – who had married, most wonderfully, Mary’s daughter, Elizabeth Pulliam.

That’s a very large and particular crowd of people, all from the same area, all connected.

Add to this the fact that Mary and Samuel name one of their children Chesley, and you’ve got a very high probability that this Samuel is actually the son of Rev. Chelsey Davis of Abbeville.

The Second Samuel

Again, this is a simplification of the problem, as there are many men named Samuel Davis, even in our little Abbeville – Greene County areas. The Samuel I am referring to here is the one who, in the past, has been widely accepted as the son of the Reverend Chesley – so many times, by so many people – it’s almost impossible to discover who first made this assertion. I’d love to find that person and ask them for their documentation. You will find this all over the internet, and in (recent) historical discussions – people making this calm, absolutely certain statement that Samuel Davis of Sumter County, Alabama is the son of Chesley Davis.

But the evidence points other-wise. Or, at least, the evidence does not point at HIM.

Frankly, I don’t know where this man came from – except that the census later reports that he was born in South Carolina – or what branch of the Davis family he springs from. We become aware of him in 1850, because we finally can see actual names in the census at that point. And because he is the only Samuel Davis in that area who leaves a good will and probate, everybody wants to claim him.

My link to him comes, again, through Turner A. Davis and his family. And again, we find Turner, his mother and sibs and many of his neighbors migrating from Abbeville down into Alabama in the mid 1830s. Turner is not much younger than both of these Samuels – maybe seven to nine years younger than they were.

Turner moves with wife (this is an assumption, since all we have is the census, and that isn’t strong) and children to Greene, where his wife dies (again, an assumption – she could have died before they left South Carolina – we have NO proof of any of these things even when we have what passes as good documents in this time and space). We do know that he married again, because we have the marriage record in Greene, and we know that that he had a daughter in that marriage – because that story is told, briefly but definitively, in his 2nd wife’s father’s probate. But his second wife dies soon after her first child was born.

Turner was left with a mess of kids and a new baby.

He found a third wife. And this is where the connection to Samuel comes in. When I first uncovered this situation, I wanted to assume that the connection with Betsey Cherry occurred because of a connection between Turner and the Samuel Davis living in Greene at that time.

Betsey Jane Cherry was the daughter of George Cherry, an inn owner who had come from Duplin, North Carolina to settle in Green, and she had married John D. Arrington, of Warren, NC. They had several children before he died. The execs of his will were his wife and his brother, Nicholas J. Arrington. (Are you keeping all of this straight?

So we have: the widow Betsy Jane Cherry has a brother-in-law, Nicholas J Arrington – and (HERE is our connection), Nicholas Arrington is married to the daughter of THIS Samuel Davis – Elizabeth Davis.

So Elizabeth Davis, daughter of Samuel Davis, marries Nicholas J Arrington and becomes Elizabeth Arrington. And also becomes the sister-in-law of Elizabeth Jane Cherry Arrington. So there are two Elizabeth Arringtons. For a while.

Somehow, Turner A. Davis met the widow Elizabeth Jane Cherry Arrington, and they decided to marry in 1842. Elizabeth Arrington became Elizabeth Davis. (Do you see why getting the connections straight as you do genealogical research can be very difficult?)

At any rate – that’s how THIS Samuel Davis is also connected to my family. And why, in the beginning, I assumed, also, that this Samuel Davis must be the son of Chesley. It fit so nicely, and I liked the narrative. But as I did more research, trying to prove the connection, I realized there was no suggest of this in the documents.

This “other” Samuel Davis lived in Greene County, but had been born in South Carolina. His birth place is another thing that convinced people that he was the son of Chelsey Davis. But the fact of the matter is that South Carolina was a big state and Samuel Davis is not a rare name. He could have been from any county. He might have shown up in the census of South Carolina in 1840 or 1830 or even 1820 as a head of household. I went through all the Samuel Davis entries in the SC census over the decades – there were about nine – and, using the ages of parents and children, tried to find the family that seemed to fit. The closest I came was, as I recall, Newberry in 1830.

So it’s hard to know who this Samuel was or when he moved into Alabama.

The facts (or what we take for facts) available to us about him are few. His early adult life with his first family is defined only because one of his sons, Jesse P., died young. Jessie’s probate names his brothers and sisters (the document actually makes differentiation between full sibs and half sibs – but is wrong half the time when you do the math), and establishes the marriage of Elizabeth Davis to Nicholas Arrington. But the mother of these kids is not mentioned. I assume this is because, by this time, she has died and so has no interest in the estate.

Then again, the date on Jesse’s estate is 1854, long after Samuel had married his 2nd wife, Susannah Campbell. So the mother had been dead for over four years.

Samuel ends up living his life out in Sumter County, Alabama, with Susannah, his 2nd wife, with a second set of children. All of the children, the first set and the second, are listed in Samuel’s Sumter will. So we have definite establishment of these connections.

There is nothing in any of this to point us to Samuel’s father.

But here are the things I think people have drawn on:

1. This Samuel has named one of his children Headly. Headly as a given name is used in one branch of the Rezin Davis line – from which some people assume Chesley comes. As far as I have seen, the name only shows up once, in one of the branches. And it’s not unique to this family. It’s a surname that shows up in many families as a given name.

2. Two of Chesley’s children turn up in Greene County. There’s Gabriel Washington, who wrote the autobio. And there’s Littleberry.

One of the problems we’re running into is that people don’t read Gabriel’s bible entry very carefully. What he says is: “My line of the family early emigrated to South Carolina, settled in Newberry and Edgefield Counties.” This doesn’t mean that everyone in the line settled in Newberry and then Edgefield. It could seem that way at first look. But it could also mean that some of the line went to Newberry and some to Edgefield. He does also say, “My grandfather’s name as well as I know was Thomas Davis.” And he states that his father was Reverend Chesley Davis who was “about grown” at the close of the Revolution (which doesn’t sound like he was of age to fight). Gabriel, himself, was born in Edgefield – raised mostly in Abbeville District.

So we can be fairly sure that Gabriel is Chesley’s son. Littleberry – I assume he also was Chesley’s son. And perhaps because Littleberry moved to Sumter County (with a mess of other people), people assume that the Samuel who moved to Sumter must also be his brother.

3. The Samuel in Sumter is at least 8 years older than the Samuel in Lafayette. As will be demonstrated below, the probable birth year of Samuel Davis, arrived at my census and doing the math with the other documents, is 1798 or so. Samuel in Sumter is indicated in the 1850 census as having been born in 1790.

That’s it. I have seen no documentation that would suggest that the Sumter Samuel was related to Littleberry. Now, Littleberry had a will or a probate when he died, but for some reason, it was sent to Choctaw county, and I haven’t found it yet. I’d be surprised, however, if that will made mention of Littleberry’s parents of sibs – wills rarely do. Still, it would be very interesting to find that document. It must be said at this point, also, that Littleberry is not as rare a name as you might think. And remember that Davis is not rare at all.

Gabriel, himself, moved on to Madison County, Mississippi.

There are quite a few people from Abbeville, also, who moved into Greene County. I haven’t done much looking into possible proximity or interaction between them and this Samuel. But none of the other sibs of Chesley’s Samuel, or children who were brought up by him show up in the area.

If anyone has more information, some documentation that would suggest materially that there is any connection between this Samuel and the Chesley line, I’d love to see it.

What follows here is simply a report of the documents and logic I have on these two lines.

Establishing the identities of both Chesley and Samuel Davis

Chesley Davis search:

Before you start looking through this proof, there is something you must understand: do you realize that servant girls and farm laborer boys and cousins and sisters and brothers and parents or aunts and uncles of the household parents are also tallied in the census? Any person who is in the household on the day of enumeration is counted as part of that household. The marks you see in the census between 1790 and 1840 are not necessarily family members at all. The census is a great tool – in some ways. But almost useless in others. You cannot assume that the marks are what you’d expect them to be.

Also, Census takers were on their own. They drew their own grids, made their own inks and chose what path they were going to follow on any given day without necessarily any sense of order at all. And they had a year to finish the project. Some households were counted twice, having moved from one place in a county to another within that census year. Some are missed altogether for the same reason. People who were visiting when the census taker came were counted in the household. Babies born before the enumeration date were counted, while babies born in the same year but after the enumeration date were not – even though, by the time the census taker go to their door, the baby was three months old.

The census taker could stop half way down a road at the end of one day, and start up on another road entirely the next day. So when you see one name after another name, that does not necessarily indicate that the people lived next door to each other.

So don’t get too trusting, using the census as a source. You need to use it as a source of hints – but find “solid” proof in probates, deeds, court cases, guardianships, obituaries – real records. But even then, there are huge mistakes. Death certs are often filled out by grandchildren who have no idea when their grandparents were born – or who their great grandparents were. Tombstones sometimes have very wrong dates carved into them for the same reason.

And absolutely: “trees” on services like Ancestry, or web sites dedicated to certain surnames are NOT sources. Only if they show you the documents or the proof or at least the logic behind their conclusions are they to be trusted. People copy and paste bad information all the time. Just because something has been posted 100 times does not make it true.

So these notes show you both my documentation and my logical analysis of what little information we actually have. I start with what you may already have seen on the internet, but show you both the constructive bits and identify the bits that don’t make sense in time, mathematics, logic:

A search through all US Census reconstructed records 1660-1820:

Chesley Davis 1780 Fork of Broad and Saludy Rivers 96th SC

Ancestry Family Data Collection entry:

Chesley Davis md Mary Tate. Parents: John Davis, Susannah Davis. Born Somerset Co, MD in 1708. Married Campbell, VA in 1754 (why would he wait 50 years?) Died in Newberry in 1787 This is stupid. The math does NOT add up. These are user submissions. Same old same old. No documents. Same with “international marriage” collection. All just somebody sending it in or publishing it somewhere.

Collection: Compiled Census South Carolina

1779: Chesley Davis in 96 dist.
1780: Chesley Davis on a list of Petit Jury men in civil causes. Lower part of 96 Dist in fork of Broad and Saludy rivers.
1860: Chesley Davis in Newberry 1860 (Obviously they missed a good number of things)

Compiled Mississippi census: 1850 slave schedule Chesley Davis no image

Federal Census Collection: an open search without anything but name qualifier:

1790: no Chesley
1800: There is a Chesley Davis in Newberry District 4 males –10 1 male 26-44 (b. 1746 – 1764) 2 females –10 1f 10-15 1f 16-25

The listing in this county is alphabetical – meaning they listed the population by surname rather than neighborhood or route. All “D”s together–so it’s chaos. Included are John and Thomas Davis. We get no sense of proximity, no neighbor names. This could indicate two Gorman boys and two of Chesley’s own sons, all born before 1800, I suppose. Maybe the 2 Gorman girls and one of Chesley’s.

The fact of the matter is this: I have found one family entered twice in the same census for the same year, in different districts. The census is really a crap shoot. So this AND the Edgefield entry may be the same family at different times. But there’s also a Chesley who STAYS in Newberry and whose death is recorded there. And among whose children is yet another Chesley.

The significant thing is this: we find Chesley in Edgefield at this time in a the probate of Claiborne Gorman, as admin of the estate of Susannah Berry Gorman’s 1st husband. So it would seem that, either there are two Chesley Davis in that area below and east of Abbeville, or that Chesley was living in one place, but functioning in the other. It is also possible that these two locations, on either side of the county line, may have been minutes away from each other.

1800 Federal Census: Edgefield – Ancestry image 108/115: (Pg 185 A)

There is a badly preserved entry at the bottom of the page that could easily be Chesley Davis. There is the strong suggestion of a C at the beginning and of a Y at the end of the given name. The surname, if you compare it to the Robert Davis several households up, is definitely “Davis.” That census guy loved him some capital D. If anyone can check the original census pages, maybe they’d do better. Just checked the Family Search image, and it looks even more like Chesley. The name is nearly whited out – but the C – and I swear there’s a faint riser right after it. THAT entry has the following marks (marks just as weird and faint):

2 males-10 1m 26-44 1 female -10 1f 26-44. Which doesn’t help that much. Phooey.

MAP of South Carolina in 1800

Later, we will find a Chesley Davis in Abbeville, up by the Saluda just under the Pendleton border and at the same time, a Chesley in Newberry. So it looks like there were two Chesleys. Ours definitely has business in Edgefield.

There is a Find A Grave memorial, founded on a tombstone found in the Cromer-Davis-Martin cemetery in Kinards, Newberry County, South Carolina (the present Newberry, which is a little more distant from our present area of Abbeville). The burial is for Thomas Davis, born 11 May 1761 and who died 26th March 1842 (which is after our Chesley’s death).

The memorial (don’t know who wrote it) claims that this Thomas is the son of Chesley Davis (1708-1787) and Mary Tate Davis, and that he married Eleanor Waller. And that, together, they were the parents of a Chesley Davis who died in 1879. Which would not be our Davis. I mention this because of the name “Warler” that shows up in our 1st Samuel Davis’ family, and continues to show up in that line – at least once, as I recall. Because of that name, and because Gabriel Washington states that he believes his grandfather to have been a Thomas Davis. If the writer of the memorial is correct, and the son of this Thomas DID die in 1879, he is obviously not the Chesley we are concerned with.

But then, we never do see a solid connection of our Chesley to Newberry. Even Gabriel’s statement does not state this categorically. Another problem with our connecting to this man is that there is no documentation of the name “Waller” as the wife’s maiden name. There is no such name on the tombstone they offer us for her. There is no other stone or memorial that includes that name. So where did it come from?

Portrait of Chelsey’s family as sketched out in his will of 1827 (Abbeville):

Samuel: 30-40 in 1830 Abbeville census so b. 1790-1800
Daniel is mentioned second.
Gabriel Davis is 20-30 in that census so b. 1800-1810 In 1850 he’s 42 (b.1808)
Susannah has died. She’s listed 4th.
Jesse. I believe him to be the young one still home in 1830 15-20 so b. 1810-15
Littleberry is also 20-30 in that census. 1800-1810
Nancy who married Tyler Logan: b abt 1805
Hepsibah (there’s one girl left at home 15-20 so 1810-15
Beulah – md to William Buchanan 1809

Clayborn Gorman

Federal Census: 1790 – Edgefield South Carolina. He is listed on just about the middle of the middle column. Next door, significant names: Claiborne Gorman, Cap Thomas Spraggins, Martha Abney, William White, Paul Abney, Thomas Berry.

Will and probate of Claiborne Gorman of Edgefield, South Carolina

index to loose papers Edgefield. 1785 – 1957 image 50 far left:

Gorman Claiborne/Chesley Davis Adm image 38/1498

(Family search library search link):

This is box 38 pack 1498

My notes on the packet:

image 384/790 Box 38/1498 estate of Clayborne Gorman 1798

image 385/790 The Estate of Claiborne Gorman in acct current with Suzannah Davis and Chesley Davis admin

386: Purchase page Names:

Susannah Davis
Thomas Berry Sr.
Chesley Davis
Thomas Bradey
Andrew Brown
Thomas Young Berry
John Gorman
Saml Spraggins
James Gibson
Chesley buys tons
Geo Abney
Wm. Yarbrough
Sam’l Beaks
Richard Coleman
Thomas Berry jr.

387/The amount Sales of the estate of Claybourn Gorman dec. Sworn in open Court by Susannah Davis, Chesley Davis admin to said Estate by Susannah Davis/ late Gorman 11 march 1797.

image 390: 1803

Mary Gorman six yards of fabric. – also schooling
John Gorman for a hat and for schooling
Thomas Gorman Schooling 1804

image 391: pd land tax 1799

image 392: payments for schooling and other expenses from 1813 through 1814

image 393: other outputs – taxes, things for children. Elizabeth Gorman for silk trimming for bonnet. John, Thomas.

394: More accounts 1798 with names.

FINISHED

Thus we see that Chesley and Susannah are actively involved in administering the estate in Edgefield (the estate is in Edgefield – they may be elsewhere) from 1797 through 1804 or so.

Thomas Berry Will and Probate, Edgefield, South Carolina

I am including the estate notes for Thomas Berry here, just establishing this Chesley’s wife’s connection, and emphasizing the location of these people in Edgefield, SC, rather than Newberry.

Probate of Thomas Berry

image 517: Estate of Thomas Berry acct current with Elizabeth Berry. 29 April 1808 and Feb 1809 Elizabeth Berry admin David Berry. John Abney Robert Brooks – there are many more names here, but it’s late and I’m tired So I’m just looking for Susannah.
518: 1819 Account currant with Eunice Berry
522: Pd Joseph Berry, Daniel Berry
523: Will of Thomas Berry Sr. of Edgefield and SC.
Eunice is wife. “My youngest set of children”:
Polley Berry.
Lilly Elender Walton Berry
Eunice Berry
Frances Leviney Susannah Berry
Sarah Berry
Sivil Berry
Harriot Berry

To my four? oldest daughters – namely:

Margaret White
Janey Cole
Ruth Marrow and
Susannah Davis
3 negroes to be divided equally between them..

Sons

Thomas Young Berry.
Samuel Berry.
Gabriel Berry
Three dollars to the heirs of my dtr Rebeckah White.

appoint Enoch Brazeal and James Walker my Execs with wife Eunice. signed January 1819 4th day. ********

https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9P1-27VZ?i=522&cat=363944

One would assume, at this point, that we could track Susannah’s children in the census. Susannah had four children before she married Chesley: Thomas, John, Elizabeth and Mary Gorman. All born before 1797.

Chasing these kids down to pin-point birth years is not easy. But we need them in order to find the family profile in the census. I found one reference to a Mary Gorman b 1790 in SC, but that’s so general, it’s almost useless. http://www.genealogy.com/ftm/s/t/a/Tommie-A-Stapleton/GENE5-0006.html

Another site http://www.genealogy.com/forum/regional/states/topics/sc/12306/ has more specific information, but not for the kids. I’m looking for birth years.

http://www.genealogy.com/forum/regional/states/topics/sc/9664/ :

“Claiborne (md Susannah dau of Thomas Berry) was father of Dr. John Berry GORMAN (b 1793 SC) and Dr. Thos. B. GORMAN, both educated in Philadelphia and later lived Georgia. Also daus Mary and Elizabeth.”

A quick Ancestry search based on the above yields a birth date of about 1797 for Thomas B and about 1794 for John B, This doesn’t satisfy me, as people typically list children in order of age. And we don’t know for sure these people ARE the people we’re actually looking for. The significance of these dates in this search has to do with getting a handle on the actual age of Samuel Davis, son of Chesley.

When we get to 1810, we’ll see what we find.

We are primarily looking for Samuel Davis, born – by my reckoning only, considering the timeframe suggested by the probate dates: 1797 – 1798. This would make him only two years old in 1800. He could have been older, but not old enough to show up as head of household until 1820 or so. So he would not be one of these men:

1800 Samuel Davis in Edgefield, SC 2m -10 1m 26-44 1f 16 -25

1800 Samuel Davis in Pendleton 1m-10 1m 10-15 1m 26-44 1m 45+ 3f-10 1f 45+

There are those who insist that a Mary Canady was Chesley’s first wife, but none of them offer documentation, and in my research, and more significantly, in the research of Dr. Priscilla Watkins, who specializes in this line, there has been no proof to substantiate the claim. According to Samuel’s FLafayette, Mississippi 1850 census, he was born around 1790 – but the census is a tricky thing.

If the following census entry is our Chesley in Edgefield in 1810, we have a census birth year entry for Chesley that indicates birth between 1766 and 1784. We’d expect him to be no younger than 18 as a married guy – and if he married Susannah in 1797, that would give him a birth date of about 1779. But then, we have Gabriel’s assertion that his father was “about grown” at the close of the Revolutionary war, which suggests the earlier birth date and does leave room for a first wife.

1810: Chesley Davis, Edgefield County, South Carolina: 2m-10 3m10-15 1m16-25 1m 26-44 3f -10 1f 16-25 1f 26-44

We have two sons born between 1800-1810. These would not be Susannah’s boys. But the older two sons’ ages as suggested in the Ancestry search fit these slots quite nicely. On the other hand, that would leave Samuel born closer to 1800 than his 1850 census age suggests. (I have seen census ages more than ten years off, by the way – depends on who answered the door when the census guy came and whether they were just guessing.)

We also have one older girl and three girls under ten. The younger ones could have been Susannah and Nancy, and maybe one of the Gormans. Maybe not. While the older one would seem, if our reasoning is close to truth, to be a Gorman. One of the Gorman daughters might also have married by that time.

By the way, I am assuming that the Gorman kids stayed with their mother after the death of their father. Children were sometimes raised by other family members after a father or mother died. But I think with the mom still alive, the kids would not have been shoved off into some other living situation.

I don’t really see the interface between the Chesley group in Newberry and the one in Edgefield yet.

1810: Samuel Davis. There are 7 men by this name in SC. You see why I say that this is not a rare name. But only one of them lives in the target area:

Samuel in Edgefield: 2m -10 1m 10-15 1m 26-44 4f -10 1f 26-44 –

I, personally, do not believe that Chesley’s son is this man, born 1766-1784. Too early. I think Samuel was living as part of his father’s household at this time.

Remembering that the point of these notes is the identification of Chesley’s son Samuel – the rest of the story:

ABBEVILLE, South Carolina.

At this point, I introduce to you a piece of our litmus paper: Mary Sample Pulliam and her children. They will be integral to our identification of Samuel Davis.

1810: Benjamin Pulliam (married Mary Sample): 55/58

1m -10 1m 10-15 1m 16-25 3f -10 1f 16-25 (he’d be 6-15 in 1800)

with John Sims, Eli Bowie, Geo Herd, Robert Sample, John Sample, David Stuart, Wm Neely, William Sample, Henry Johnston, Thomas Davis, Peter Coalman, , Benj Chiles, Mariweather: John, Jno H, Zach, , Bird Martin, Nathan Lispcomb, Mary Brown.

Mary Sample who married Benjamin Pulliam was his widow by Oct 1816 (And so far, the Samuel we are tracing would be anywhere between 20-26 or so)

1820: (Only 2 Chesley Davis show in the US, one in Abbeville, one in Granville, NC)

Abbeville Chesley: 1m -10 1m 10-15 1m 16-18 1m 16-25 1m 45+ 2f -10 1f 16-25 1f 45+ (Nancy, Hepzibah, Beulah? Susannah Berry?) Please keep in mind that this census had an extra age category for men – if you had a son who was 17, there would be a tick mark for him in the 16-18 slot, but, if the census taker was following the rules, there would ALSO be a tick mark for him in the 16-26 slot. This happened because they were interested in identifying young men of soldiering age. So as we have above: 1m 16-18 1m 16-25 – both marks indicate the same young man.

The 1810 Chesley we have focused on was indicated as being 26-44. We would expect him to be 36-54 in 1820. So, if the census marks in both census records are accurate (stop laughing) and we are actually looking at the same man, in 1820, Chesley’s age is 46-54. (we’re just logically doing the math). And his wife’s numbers are the same. Both birth dates, then, would be 1766-1774. This may not jive with Gabriel’s statement that his father was “just about grown” at the end of the Revolutionary war. Or it could. The problem with this whole situation is that we are at junctures constantly – between counties, between marriages, between times.

1820: Samuel Davis

Now there are 9 Samuel Davis in SC. One in Newberry is 26-44. Two in Greenville. others in other places. There are 2 in Abbeville. One of these is probably Chesley’s son.

This is where it gets very complicated. Let me explain that both the Samuel of Greene – who is believed, evidently by everybody but me, to be the son of the Rev. Chesley, and the Samuel of Abbeville, Lafayette, Mississippi, who is the man I believe to be Chesley’s son, had first marriages. This complicates the search. We have two wives for each and two sets of children – and the early stuff is BEFORE 1850 when the census begins to record actual names in households. So all we have are questionable census numbers.

1820 Samuel in Abbeville #1 58/67 1m -10 1m 10-15 1m 16-18 2m 16-25 (two last have on who is the same person counted twice) 2f -10 1f 26-44. He is enumerated on a page with Jos. Brownlee, Ethan Parrot, David Stuart, Robert Pool, Sarah Franklin, Downs Calhoun, William Wier, Elizabeth Davis (William W.’s wife), John Cotrill, Sam Wilson, Will Smith, Nicholas Long, John Hagood Francis White, James Smith, others.

He is MARRIED and has the 3 kids by this time – 2 boys 1 girl. Boys born about 1810. Unless Willis has died by 1820. (I am getting ahead of myself here. I haven’t outlined the families for Samuel yet. – but I’m getting there.) The point is, if this is the son of Chesley, he is no longer living in his father’s household. And hasn’t done so for since probably around 1813 or so.

When we go to 1850 in LaFayette, Mississippi, we find Chesley Davis who seems to be the oldest son of Samuel who is the son of Chesley (are you confused yet?). This grandson of Chesley’s is born 1821 in SC. So Samuel #1 looks good to be the actual Chesley Samuel. One small child and two older boys.

1820: Samuel Davis in Abbeville #2 64/67: 1m 10-15 1m 26-44 2f 10-15 1f 45+ (Sample?) on a page with: William Wardlaw, John Pulliam, John R Sample, Barbary Sample, Nathaniel Calhoun, John Johnson, Joseph Wardlaw, Hendersons, Robert Turner, Richard and Hilliard Watson, John Burt, Ben Mitchel, Jesse Adams, James Lomax jr, and sr, James Henderson, John Wright, John Williams, Me Henson? Samuels Davis, Ed Walls, others.

There’s no way you could know this, unless you have been working all the lines in the Saluda side of Abbeville for a long time, but this list of neighbors seems a more likely neighborhood for the Samuel who has married the widow of Benjamin Pulliam.

The important things here are mentioned in Benjamin Pulliam’s probate, which follows here: First the abstract of Benjamin’s will taken from Pauline Young’s excellent book:

Benj Pulliam’s will: Pauline Young’s Wills of Abbeville County, South Carolina: 75/1824

Oct 16, 1816: by Mary Pulliam, Alexander, Robert Sample, Pleasant Wright. Inventory made by James Pulliam (his brother) John Read Long, David Stuart. Jan 3 1820, James Franklin pd tuition for “Wyly,” Willis Pulliam. Mary, Saml Davis made gdns of 3 children of dec. (Mary is their MOTHER)

Then collected hints pulled out of the probate:

Abbeville Wills FamilySearch: this is the page that has the signature of Chesley Davis and the following statement:

Whereas Mary Pulliam and Alexander Sample made suit to me to grant them letters of admin for the estate of Benj Pulliam, late of this dist. dec.” There is then the invitation for all kindred and creditors to appeal before the Ordinary (tall Livingston) at Abbeville on Saturday after publication thereof to shew cause why the adms should not be installed. 26 Sept 1816. PUBLISHED by me – 6th of October at Providence Church Chesley Davis. —with the signature of Chesley Davis.

****** Providence Church was a Methodist Church on Cloud Creek, part of the Saluda circuit. History of Edgefield pg 321 speaks of Good Hope: The church was constituted in the year 1804 by Henry King, Chesley Davis and William Eddins. The memebership was spall. The pastors have been Chesley Davis, William Still, — Todd, David Peterson, Johnes W. Coleman (also mentions A.P. Norris, W.A. Gaines, Burton, McMillan, Rooke and Carson.

Starting again with image 34: Inventory of assets, ending in list of notes.

one for Zachariah Mots
1 for Richard Gaines 10
1 for Chelsey Davis 30$
1 Herbert ? 13
1 James Gaines 837 1/2
1 William Burgis. 7:12 1/2
$3942.12 1/2
pd John B Sample, Dr Logan, Jae Pulliam, Zeri Rice for schooling kids.
John McBryde
Paid widow’s portion in full 1818
Other packets in the equity court collection of Abbeville, South Carolina connect the names of Samuel Davis, Chesley Davis and Mary Sample Pulliam Davis.

The children of Mary Sample are Wiley Pulliam b. about 1810, Willis – who died early – so we don’t get a handle on him – and Elizabeth Pulliam, born about 1815 according to several census and information suggested in the equity court records.

So Samuel would have these children show up in his household.

TO REHASH SAMUELS OF ABBEVILLE

–>1820 Samuel in Abbeville #1 58/67 1m -10 1m 10-15 1m 16-18 2m 16-25 2f -10 1f 26-44. He is enumerated on a page with Jos. Brownlee, Ethan Parrot, David Stuart, Robert Pool, Sarah Franklin, Downs Calhoun, William Wier, Elizabeth Davis (William W.’s wife), John Cotrill, Sam Wilson, Will Smith, Nicholas Long, John Hagood Francis White, James Smith, others.

–>1820: Samuel Davis in Abbeville #2 64/67: 1m 10-15 1m 26-44 2f 10-15 1f 45+ On a page with: William Wardlaw, John Pulliam, John R Sample, Barbary Sample, Nathaniel Calhoun, Joh Johnson, Joseph Wardlaw, Hendersons, Robert Turner, Richard and Hilliard Watson, John Burt, Ben Mitchel, Jesse Adams, James Lomax jr, and sr, James Henderson, John Wright, John Williams, Me Henson? Samuels Davis, Ed Walls, others.

AGES: #1 is younger. He’s 16-25 and has another guy in the same range living with them. His wife is actually older than he is, being in the 26-44 year range.

#2 is 26-44. Either his wife is over 45, or he’s widowed and has a mother or mother-in-law living with him. Or something. If he, himself, is actually in the older range, having a 45+ wife may make perfect sense. The son may even be a grandson or nephew in that case. If he is younger, in the 26 end of the range, this boy and woman may be a mother and brother. Either way, at this point, Samuel Davis who married Mary Sample would have far more children in his household at this point.

The names near his in the census are really all in the same general area. But it bothers me that Barbary and John Sample and John Pulliam show up around him. Still, Samuel #1 has lots of kids of the right age and is near Elizabeth Davis, who will be seen here to be key to my thesis along with other very familiar names in the area. Again, I must remind us that census takers did not necessarily work in a predictable grid order. So you can only get a general idea of neighborhood, not a specific layout out of the record.

It’s interesting that both of the Samuel Davis of Abbeville in 1820 have oldest females in the household who are older than they are. This could suggest a single man marrying a widow. Or a widower, as I said above.

To revisit Edgefield 1810 Samuel: 2m-10 1m10-15 1m26-44 4f-10 1f26-44 – this Samuel would be 36-54 in 1820. These small children are too young to be Benjamin’s children. We don’t know Benjamin’s death date, but we do know he was alive and listed on the 1810 census. So the Edgefield Samuel would have 2m 10-20 and 1m 20-25 in 1820 and would have 4 females 10-20 and a wife 36-54 in 1820. Unless, of course, anyone died or got married.

And frankly, none of this makes sense. Nobody is matching up.

Ancestry has NO listing for a Samuel Davis in Edgefield in 1820. Or 1830. Or 1840. Still, doesn’t mean there wasn’t one.

This is why I tell you that trying to use the census as your research vehicle is VERY chancy.

1830 is the Nexis for this line

1830: There is a Chesley in Newberry (30-39), in Pickens and in Abbeville = and one in Heywood, Tenn. SO THERE ARE 4 that come up in an open Ancestry Search. Obviously, if we are going on Gabriel’s autobiography, Abbeville is the place where the family finally landed. In this census, we find Chesley, Samuel, Gabriel, Littleberry – and Turner A. Davis.

Turner is the reason I started this whole bout of research. Turner is my 3gGrandfather. When I finally traced him back to South Carolina, this page is where I found him. And then wasted about a decade trying to figure out how he fit into Chesley’s family. The answer: he did not. But because of this strange juxtaposition, my team of cousin-researchers and I still suspect that somewhere, generations back, our lines come from the same root.

1830: Federal Census. Abbeville, South Carolina: listing for Chesley Davis -1m 15-19 1m 60-69 1f 15-19 1f 40-49.

Hauling out the 1820 listing for Chesley in Abbeville: 1820: 1m -10 1m 10-15 1m 16-18 1m 16-25 1m 45+ 2f -10 1f 16-25 1f 45+. If 1830 is accurate, then Chesley was 50-59 in 1820, b. 1761-1770. To quote myself from several pages up: The 1810 Chesley we have focused on was indicated as being 26-44. We would expect him to be 36-54 in 1820. BINGO. If we take the 1830 60-69, he would have been 40-49 in 1810. And so 30-39 in 1800.

In 1810, Susannah was indicated as 26-44. In 1820, that would make her 36-54. In the 1820 census, she is indicated as being 45+ which seems to work.. Ten years later, in 1830, the math says she should be 46-64 (according to 1810) or 55+ (according to 1820). But the census in 1830 has her at 40-49. This is either someone guessing her age wrong at the door or Susannah has died. Could one of her daughters be 40 and still at home? Yes. But in 1820, there is no 30 year old extra female. in 1820, the second oldest female was indicated as being no older than 25 years old.

So the age is wrong in the census or Susannah is dead, and they have either hired a housekeeper, which is entirely possible, or Chesley took on another wife, which is not indicated in the will. Certainly, she has died before 1827, as she is not mentioned in the will. So that answers the question about Susannah, but doesn’t tell us who the extra female may be. But this just strikes me – it’s possible that the extra female may be a daughter who has been widowed and the two children, who are awfully young (10-15) for parents who are 60-69 and 55+, may be hers. The kids COULD be Susannah’s – but my word. If they are 15, born in 1815, and she was – well, it could have happened that she had two kids between 1815 and 1824. But she’d have been quite old for the pregnancies.

Chesley makes a will in Abbeville in 1827 box 25/573. But he doesn’t die until about 1835. Inventory made by Wm. Taggert, Jesse Calvert, Robert Turner. in 1835

Chesley Davis’ Will

i214 Chesley Davis pg 378

After just payment of my debts, I give to my son, Samuel, 100 acres of land wheron he now lives and I made him a title; I give to my son, Daniel, 120 acres lying on the west side of my tract, the branch? To be the line and to extend ? toward Mr. Fosters.

I give to my son Littleberry one hundred acres of land lying on the south side of my tract and the line to extend from near the head of Mr. Thomas Spraggins branch over to the spring? I now use westward so that he shall have water. All the rest of my land I give to my two sons Gabriel and Jesse, to be equally divided between them so that their privileges shall be equal in all cases. Gabriel to have the house I moved out of and Jesse to have the house I now live in.

As touching my personal estate I will first of all that my young children be advanced equal to my eldest: that is to say one hundred dollars to both sons and daughters and then my daughters that is to say Nancy, Hepzibah and Bulah [there has been some question over the years about the number of daughters, some people reading this Nancy Hepzibah as one daughter. This is incorrect, and it is clear in other sources, to the noting of both Nancy’s husband and Hepzibah’s husband, that there are three daughters] to have one hundred dollars more each out of my personal estate than my sons.

I will also that my daughters Nancy Hepzibah and Bulah have that part of my personal estate that would have belonged to my daughter Susana (looks like sus and) had she lived [this is the part that I am missing from my copy of the original – in the crease].

I will that Gabriel and Jesse have fifty dollars less of my personal estate than the rest of my sons and daughters on the accord of their having the buildings.

I will and bequeath to James? Shamus? Tomas? Francis? Harris? Three dollars. I will and bequeath to Francis Harris three dollars. and to William Gaines three Dollars and I will all the rest of my estate to be equally divided between all my sons and daughters – Samuel: Daniel: Littleberry; Jesse; Nancy, Hepzibah and Bulah;. [Gabriel is not in the list, but he is clearly referred to as a son]

I will that my estate go into the Ordinaries’ Office? further than to prove and ? I will that my executors be gdn for my children or child that she be under age. I appoint my three sons Samuel, Daniel and Gabriel my execs. 1827 wit Charles Smith, Robert E Buchanan, William Buchanan

Equity Court record box 24/ pack 643 identifies Tyler Logan minor 1861? (marries Nancy Davis, Chesley’s daughter)Equity

Note to self: 41/2205 READ THIS IN THE ORIGINAL 1819 – Wiley Pulliam, son of Benjamin Pulliam dec (gdn Samuel Davis). John B Davis md Elizabeth Pulliam.

Also read 55/3106,1

–==0==–

Please recall that there is no Samuel Davis found in an Ancestry Search in Edgefield in either 1830 or 1840.

Now we look at the kids’ profiles as presented in the 1830 federal census: but first I have to explain that, other than the boys listed on Chesley’s page, we have to look again at that census listing to see if we can find the others. In an Ancestry search for Davis in 1830 in Abbeville, we find no Jesse and no Daniel. But there is one boy and one girl, each 15/19 still in the household. Again – are they Susannah’s or are they grandchildren – or other family? We’ll probably never know. – But I looked again at 1820 – and there were two girls under ten and a boy under ten. So they probably are Susannah’s after-all.

Chesley’s Children as reported in the will:

1. Samuel: 30-40 in 1830 Abbeville census so b. 1790-1800
2. Daniel is mentioned second.
3. Gabriel Davis is 20-30 in that census so b. 1800-1810
4. Susannah has died. She’s listed 4th.
5. Jesse. I believe him to be the young one still home in 1830 15-20 so b. 1810-15
6. Littleberry is also 20-30 in that census, married with kids. b. 1800-1810
7. Nancy who married Tyler Logan: b abt 1805
8 Hepsibah 30-39 in 1840 census so 20-29 in 1830 (there’s one girl left at home 15-20 so 1810-15? She married William Morgan. (See the real estate book)
9. Beulah – md to William Buchanan 1809

The Abbeville Real Estate Book of the court of ordinary gives us pointers to find some of these folks. In it, we learn the name of Chesley’s wife at the time of his death. And that Hepzibah marries William Morgan – who also is listed in the 1840 census of Lafayette, Mississippi, sharing a page with Samuel and with Tyler Logan – three sibling families.

The lovely thing about this is that he describes the land he leaves to the boys. To Samuel, Chesley leaves the land Samuel “now dwells on,” and points out that it meets the land of Thomas Spraggins (which is a very important name that connects this Chesley to the Edgefield community – and also suggests that these people lived close on either side of the county line between Old Abbeville and Old Edgefield. There are other neighborhood hints as well.

1830 Abbeville, Federal Census: people on Ancestry image 11, page 7

John Logan is on this page. (According to Logan family research, he is the father of Andrew Logan, who was the father of Tyler Logan who married Nancy Davis.)

Gabriel Davis: 1m -5 1m 30-40 and Emmeline Crawford who is 20-30 ( 1850 Census: Gabriel W Davis 42 (born 1808 so in 1830 he’d be 22 ????)

Samuel: 30-40 2m-5 1m 5-9 1m 30-39 2f -5 1f 10-14 1f 15-19 1f 40-50 (1830 Samuel Davis: There isn’t one in the census report for Sumner during this period. BUT, there are two in Abbeville – NOPE, just one. Ancestry read Turner A. Davis as a Samuel A Davis. So only the one.)

Littleberry is also on this page. Later, he appears in Greene County, Alabama, and then in Sumter, where Gabriel is also found for a while.

Chesley dies in 1835.

–=0=–

Identifying Samuel Davis in Abbeville

We have two listings for a Samuel Davis in the Ancestry search for Abbeville, South Carolina in 1820. We need to understand the difference between the two. So, repeating the Rehash:

–>1820: Samuel Davis in Abbeville #2 64/67: 1m 10-15 1m 26-44 2f 10-15 1f 45+ On a page with: William Wardlaw, John Pulliam, John R Sample, Barbary Sample, Nathaniel Calhoun, Joh Johnson, Joseph Wardlaw, Hendersons, Robert Turner, Richard and Hilliard Watson, John Burt, Ben Mitchel, Jesse Adams, James Lomax jr, and sr, James Hendrson, John Wright, John Williams, Me Henson? Samuels Davis, Ed Walls, others.

AGES: #1 is younger. He’s 16-25 and has another guy in the same range living with them. His wife is actually older than he is, being in the 26-44 year range.

Adding to this the last census for Benjamin Pulliam’s family before he died:

1810: Benjamin Pulliam (married Mary Sample): 55/58 1male -10 1m 10-15 1m 16-25 3 female -10 1f 16-25 (he’d be 6-15 in 1800) with John Sims, Eli Bowie, Geo Herd, Robert Sample, John Sample, David Stuart, Wm Neely, William Sample, Henry Johnston, Thomas Davis, Peter Coalman, , Benj Chiles, Marriweather: John, Jno H, Zach, , Bird Martin, Nathan Lispcomb, Mary Brown.

Mary Sample who married Benjamin Pulliam was his widow by Oct 1816 And had married Samuel Davis. Again – remember that Samuel and Chesley both show up in the probate process of this estate.

Caution: it is entirely possible that either or both of the Samuels who are indicated as living in Abbeville in 1820 could be involved. I am guessing that the probability is that Samuel, the son of Chesley, would be the man involved in the estate. I cannot be sure of that. This is why family history is not a science.

Benjamin, himself, does not show up as head of household in 1800. But there is a son of Patterson Pulliam, who is listed in that census for Abbeville, next to James Pulliam – the name of Benjamin’s brother as established in several documents – who has a tick mark for a male child who is roughly the same age as Benjamin. (These are the only two Pulliams in that search – which does NOT mean, necessarily, that they are related to Benjamin). If they ARE Benjamin’s family, then we can figure that he wasn’t married at the time of the census. BUT, we can’t be sure of that.

The three children who are mentioned in the will of Benjamin Pulliam are Wiley, Willis and Elizabeth.

There are two boys listed in the household in 1810. One who is under ten years old in that year. One who is between ten and fourteen. There are three girls under ten, which means that two were NOT their own children or two died before 1816. As Mary is the mother, and Samuel Davis is their step father and they are also designated legal guardians of the kids, we might see them in 1820.

However, according to Equity bx 41 pack 2204, Elizabeth is married to John B. Davis by 1819. Chesley Davis is also mentioned in this pack in conjunction with Samuel Davis and Mary Pulliam, which makes me pretty certain that Samuel and Chesley are connected.

Establishing the Ages of Mary Pulliam’s Children

We find Wiley Pulliam in 1850 in Lafayette, Mississippi as head of household. (Willis died early).

1850 Federal Census for Lafayette County, Mississippi – image 22 of 199 -in Ancestry film

Wiley Pulliam 40 SC
Rebecca R? 41 SC
Mary R 16 SC
Indiana E 13 SC
John R Pulliam 9 SC
Caroline A 7 Miss (so they came about 1842)
Alice E Pulliam 3 Miss

From this we extrapolate his age – born 1810.

Also, we have John B Davis and Elizabeth Pulliam Davis in that same general location: Lafeyette, Miss

John B Davis 43 SC
Elizabeth 35 SC
Jas W Davis 15 SC
Charlotte A 13 SC (so these guys came straight here)
Wm L Davis 10 Miss on down (So, they got here around 1840 – )
Judith E Davis 8
Mary E Davis 6
John W Davis 4
Robt P Davis 2
Christopher C 1/12

So Elizabeth Pulliam Davis was born 1807. All of these ages are consistent over the next decade’s census. Therefore, in 1820, she was five years old.

DIGRESSION: Here, I must point out, you begin to see the basis of my assertion: The Samuel Davis associated with Chesley Davis in the probate of Benjamin Pulliam ends up in Lafayette, Mississippi with wife, Mary Sample and her children: Wiley and Elizabeth as grownups. These two children were Samuel Davi’s step children. But there is far more to this.

Back in Abbeville, around 1820, a Samuel Davis is ALSO made gdn of the children of William W. Davis, the uncle of Turner A. Davis and brother of Thomas Davis, son of William Davis of Anderson County, South Carolina on the Broadmouth. That Samuel, then, is the guardian of John B. Davis. The same John B. Davis who married Elizabeth Pulliam, and who moves to Lafayette, Mississippi. This Samuel disappears from Abbeville in the mid 1830s, according to the gdnship papers in the Abbeville Equity court records.

The thing I still need to prove here is that THIS Samuel Davis is the Samuel Davis of the 1830 census where he is listed with Chesley, Littleberry and Gabriel. But we can’t forget that Turner A. Davis was in the middle of that spaced out group, and he is NOT a member of that immediate family.

Here is the 1850 Fed Census listing for Samuel Davis in Lafayette, Miss:

Saml Davis52 SC (born 1798)
Mary Davis 61 SC (b 1789)
M E Davis 6 Miss
Wm W Davis 2 Miss

In 1820, depending on the month of birth (after or before the date of enumeration), the Lafayette Samuel would have been 22, his wife 31 and he should have been counted as 16-26. His wife as 26-44. Their oldest child, Chesley, not yet born. In 1830, Lafayette Samuel should be 32 and his wife 41.

Again: 1820

–> #1 1820: Samuel in Abbeville 58/67 1m -10 1m 10-15 1m 16-18 2m 16-25 2f -10 1f 26-44. (Remember:a boy counted as 16-18 is counted in 16-25 also.

–> #2 1820: Samuel in Abbeville 64/67 1m 10-15 1m 26-44 2f 10-15 1f 45+

1830 Abbeville Samuel: Samuel: 2m-5 1m 5-9 1m 30-39 2f -5 1f 10-14 1f 15-19 1f 40-50

1840: John B is in Lafayette, Miss. Ancestry image 29. On image 29, also in LaFayette, on a page with Tyler Logan, who married Nancy Davis, Chesley’s daughter, is Sam Davis: 1m 10-15 2m 15-20 1m 40-49 1f 5-10 2f 10-15 1f 50-59, a perfect match for 1850, and for 1830 and for 1820 Samuel #1. –> Samuel image 58/67 1m -10 1m 10-15 1m 16-18 2m 16-25 2f -10 1f 26-44. ALSO on this page, a door or two down from Tyler Logan, is William Morgan, the name of the man who married Hepsibah, another of Chesley’s daughters.

Did you get that? Samuel Davis, Nancy Davis, perhaps Hepzibah Davis (who, in the Real Estate Book of the Court of Ordinary in Abbeville) are all on the same page in Lafayette, Mississippi – and John B Pulliam with Elizabeth Davis are two pages away in the same county. It is unlikely that all of these people, all family in Abbeville, would be living so closely in Lafayette, Mississippi, unless they were all related fairly closely.

But who is Samuel #2 who lived so close to the Samples in 1820? I still don’t know.

Summing up the proof: Samuel Davis of 1830 Abbeville, on the same page with Chesley, Gabriel and Littleberry, lines up perfectly with the Samuel Davis who married Mary Sample – and ends up migrating, along with Mary Sample’s children, the children of William D. Davis, of whom he had been legal guardian, and Chesley’s daughter, Nancy, to Abbeville, Lafayette County, Mississippi in the late 1830s. Lives, has his children and dies there, leaving a will – in which he reveals the fact that his eldest son has been named Chesley.

Another little strange bit of information comes from box 55 pack 3106 of the Abbeville Equity court records, when William W. Davis (Turner A Davis’ uncle whose children’s gdn is Samuel Davis) dies and his wife, who sues everybody for everything, demands more than her dower third of the estate and requests partition. In that court case are involved just about everybody in that part of the county – including John Sample, Same Davis, Chesley Davis, some Pulliams, Turner A. Davis, and a mess of other very familiar (if you know Abbeville in that time) neighbor names.

Will of Chesley Davis, recorded in Lafayette, Mississippi:

Samuel Davis of Lafayette, Mississippi:

Will found in Lafayette Book 1 pg 83 (Case 580), for Warler Davis book 1 pg 392 (2525)

H.L book 3 356 and Daniel Davis book 3 400 (9028)

Samuel Davis: i69

2) given to my daughter Mahala Anderson bed furniture, cow and calf and land, and many other things.
3) to my son, Chesley Davis bed and furniture
Samuel Davis’ will found in Sumter County, Al Wills 2 1851-1872
4) My son Williamson Davis
5) my daughter Mary Ann Barbary Reading (Actually Redding)
6) son Warler Davis
7) dtr Martha Pricilla Simpson
8) 2 grand children, Mary Elizabeth Pate and William Washington Pate when they come to age.
9) I will that all my children be made equal to my son Williamson Davis named in the 4th item out of my personal estate.
10) I will and desire that all my personal estate should be sold, divided between all my children viz: Mahala Anderson, Chesley Davis, Williamson Davis, Warler Davis, Mary Ann Barabary Redding, Martha Priscilla Simpson and my two grand children share and share alike so that they all shall have in equal share., Mary Elizabeth Pate and William Warling? Washing? Pate to be entitled them mother Sarah Frances Pate share if she had lived, Chesley and Warler Davis execs . Dated 1851 wit William A Turner.
Codicil to the will: he leaves to David? Jr? Pate the sum of five dollars which is all I intend he shall ever have of my estate. (ouch)

ALABAMA

At this point, we have to take a close look at the Samuel Davis who lived in Greene County, Alabama and had his second family and died in Sumter County, Alabama. This is the man who has been commonly referred to as the son of Chesley Davis.

Samuel Davis of Sumter County and Greene County, Alabama

I don’t have much of a life story for this man. Most of what we know about him comes from the 1850 census of Sumter County. In it, we don’t even find out about his first family. Evidently, this man was born in South Carolina, then moved down into Greene County, Alabama. At some point, he married a woman whose name we do not have. And with her, he had a number of children – I will outline them lower down here. She died, and he remarried, the records say, to Susannah Campbell. (There is a marriage record for this.) There are actually two Samuel Davis people in Greene, and we don’t know which one married Ms. Campbell. We do know that in the 1850 census in Sumter, that Samuel’s wife’s name is Susannah. A lot of people claim that her father was David Campbell, but again, no one offers any documentation of the fact, and I just don’t believe anything until it can be proven. Too much guessing and misinformation out there.

We know the names of his first set of kids, first through the will of his son, Jesse P Davis, who died unmarried. I know about this document because it is this document that connects, again, Turner A. Davis with a Samuel Davis. This Samuel’s daughter, Elizabeth Davis, married Nicholas J Arrington of North Carolina, the brother of John D. Davis who married Eliza Jane Cherry – and then died. Turner A. Davis married Eliza Jane after that. You can see why I have been VERY CONFUSED over decades about which Samuel was who.

It is my opinion that this Samuel was assumed to be Chesley son for the following reasons: a Little Berry Davis and a Gabriel Davis moved into the Greene area at about the same time Samuel and Nancy moved into Lafayette – after Chesley’s death. I have to say at this point that we assume this Littleberry Davis to be the brother of Gabriel. But there are no documents that prove this connection. Davis is a common surname, and Littleberry is not so rare as you may think. Do an ancestry search for just that given name over the decades and you’ll be shocked at how many people there are with that name.

Gabriel ends up moving to Mississippi – but not to the same county we’ve been looking at above. Littleberry moves into Sumter county (these lands were opening up and Sumter was a new county made up, partly, of parts of Greene. Littleberry is said to have died in Sumter, but his probate is evidently in Choctaw. So far, I have not found it. He is said to have had three daughters. Again, I cannot verify that information.

As far as the rest of Chesley’s kids, Beulah married William Buchanan, and they stayed in Abbeville, Susannah died young, Nancy went to Lafayette, Daniel just sort of disappeared, Jesse, who was left Chesley’s house in the will, but who may have been too restless to wait eight years to get it, may have moved into Alabama for a short time at the end of the 1830s, then into Mississippi before establishing himself in Texas.

The point of all this is that, when you read Gabriel’s biography, you may make the mistake of assuming that he meant his whole family had migrated to Alabama. But if you read carefully, you see that he is talking about himself. Most of the kids did NOT remove to Greene County.

One other reason: he names one of his children Headly, which is a name that shows up in the Rezin Davis line. Only once, that I have found. It’s an unusual name – another surname used as a given name. But search on Ancestry for that given name and you will see that it is not all that rare, either. There are no other names that suggest ties to the Chesley group.

This Samuel lives his life out in Sumter. His will ties his first two families together. And I will show them to you. But there is no compelling evidence to suggest that he is the son of Reverend Chesley Davis of Abbeville, South Carolina.

There are 2 Samuel Davis in Greene County in the 1830 Fed census:

1830 Fed Census in Greene County, Alabama

image 3/100

Samuel Davis 1m-5 1m 5-9 1m 40-49 1f -5 1f 10-19

image 95/100

Samuel Davis 3m 10-15 1m 20-30 1m 40-50 1f 5-10 1f 15-20 on a page with James Key no other familiar names.

1830 Abbeville Samuel: 2m-5 1m 5-9 1m 30-39 2f -5 1f 10-14 1f 15-19 1f 40-50

You can’t dismiss the possibility that a man can be in 2 census in the same census year. It happens. But looking at the two Samuel Davis listings in Greene County, which is where the Jesse P Davis estate was recorded, and where this Samuel Davis married Susannah Campbell, we can see that this Samuel Davis doesn’t match the Abbeville.

Samuel Davis md Susannah Campbell 1 NOV 1830. Greene

There is only one Samuel Davis in Sumter in 1840 And NONE in Greene.

1840 Sumter, Alabama

168/179 Samuel Davis 1m -5 1m 5-9 1m 50-59 1f -5 1f 20-29

Again, comparing –

1830 Abbeville Samuel: 2m-5 1m5-9 1m 30-39 2f -5 1f10-14 1f 15-19 1f 40-50 Translated to 1840: 2m10-15 1m15-24 1m40-49 2f10-15 1f20-24 1f25-29 1f50-60

NOT A MATCH. The Samuel Davis in Sumter in 1840 is not the Sam in Abbeville. But the 1840 Sumter does match the 1850 Sumter. Comparing, though, to 1830 and 1820, is tough because we are looking at his first family.

1850: Samuel Davis/Sumter i5 in Scattering. Fam 616

Samuel 60 farmer SC (1790)
Susan 34 f AL
William 19 AL 1m b 1831
Hedley 16 1m b 1834
Hugh 14 1m b 1836
Mary 12 1 f b 1838
Ellen 10 1 f b 1840
Amanda 8 1 f b 1842
Pernecia J? I? 6 –all Alabama, which indicates that he was in Alabama since 1831 1844

This Samuel is 8 years older than the Samuel Davis in Lafayette – whose age completes the census set that includes Samuel of 1830 Abbeville. In other words, This Samuel Davis is almost certainly NOT the son of the Reverend Chesley Davis of Abbeville, South Carolina, who – by this time – is still married to Mary Sample Pulliam Davis, and living near his siblings, his step children and the children he had been legal guardian to – in Mississippi.

1860: Sumter County Alabama.

Susan Campbell Davis is Widowed at this point. 46
Hidly Davis 26
A.E?. 14
J. P (Pernecy) 12
Ema 7

1870: Twnshp 19 Range 1 2 3 and 4 Sumter (Livingston)

Susan Davis 52
Ema 19

Next door to Headly.

This Samuel comes from South Carolina, according to the censuses. So who is he? To answer that, I did an open search for Samuel Davis in South Carolina in 1820 (Sumter Samuel was in that county in 1830):

Search in South Carolina

1820: SAM of Sumter would be 30 yrs old according to his age in the 1850 census (Our only shot at his age; he died in about 1853,)

1. Samuel Davis Abbeville: 1m -10 1m 10-15 1m 16-18 2m 16-25 2f -10 1f 26-44 (Not this one)
2. Sam Davis in Abbeville im 64/67: 1m – 10-15 1m 26-44 2f 10-15 1f 45+ (Not this one)
3.Sam Davis Chesterfield SC 2m -10 1m 26-44 2f -10 1f 16-26 (maybe?)
4. Sam Davis in Greenville, SC 1m 45+ 1f 10-15 1f 26-44 (Not this one)
5. Greenville, SC 1m 16-25 1m 45+ 1f 16-25 (Not this one)
6. Marion, Marion, SC 2m -10 1m 26-44 1f 26 (probably not this one)
7. Union, SC 1m 16-18 2m 16-25 1m 45+ 2f 10-15 1f 45+ (Not this one)
8. Colleton, SC 1m -10 1m 16-25 2m 26-44 1f 26-44 (Probably not this one.)
9. Newberry, Newberry, SC 3m -10 1m 26-44 1f 26-44 –(Could be this one)

Looking at the wills below, we are looking for 3 boys and 2 girls and at the census to see that we’re looking for a 30 year old Samuel. So the only two I think this Samuel Might be are the one in Chesterfield and the one in Newberry – in which case, he COULD be the son of a Reverend Chesley Davis – just not the Abbeville one who was married to Susannah Berry Gorman. Wouldn’t that be an incredible thing? If they BOTH were?

1854: Will of Jesse P Davis, son of Samuel Davis of Sumter and his first wife (South Carolina). His sister, Eliza J., married Nicholas Davis, and their son, Thomas Arrington, nephew of Jesse P Davis, is an heir.

Estate of Jesse P Davis dec. in the new Probate Court of Sumter County: The petition of James T. Davis respectfully showeth that his “intestate,” Jesse P Davis, dec, left the following heirs, to wit:

John W. Davis, living in Choctaw County, a BROTHER,
Thomas Arrington, a son of Elizabeth Arrington and a nephew of deceased living in Green County and who is a minor,
William R Davis, a brother living in Sumter County,
Headly Davis, a brother living in Sumter,
Ellen Davis a minor, a half sister living in Sumter,
Amanda P Davis minor and half sister living Sumter,
Rachel Walton and her husband, R T? Walton, a sister living in Sumter,
Emily Davis, a minor and half sister and a minor ,
half sister, name unknown, living in Sumter and
your petitioner and further showeth that his intestate owned … James T Davis, Dec 13 1854—

Samuel of Sumter Co. Al: Settlement of his estate is in Probate Records Book 8 page 113, Sumter Co., AL. Source: South Carolina Genealogical Register. “The above Samuel Davis died in Sumter County, Alabama. Settlement of his estate is in Probate Records Book 8 page 113, Sumter County.

His children named:

John;
Rachel wife of Richard Walton;
William R.
Headley
Hugh M (he was captured at Petersburg in the Civil War – he was born 5 March 1836);
Mary,
Ellen,
Amanda C.;
Pernicay.

Samuel’s wife Susan was living at the time of his death. According to the 1850 census, William R. was born in 1830, Headley in 1834, Hugh M. 1836, Mary in 1838, Ellen in 1840 and Penny (Pernicey) in 1844.

The marriage records show that Headley married Mary Dial – no issue;
Hugh M. married A. T. Johnson;
Ellen married Getson Danner, brother of Amelia Danner who married William R. Davis.
William R. Davis had a child named Susan Davis who married Robert Jefferson Boyd (Grandparents of Nell Motes Goggans) –

The Davis children who married before they came to Sumter County were Rachel who married Richard Walton; James T. who married Margaret Waine. [of course, this leaves out Jesse, whose probate I have. And the other children who show up in the census for Abbeville]

Again: 1850: Samuel Davis/Sumter i5 in Scattering. Fam 616

Samuel 60 farmer SC (1790)
Susan 34 f AL
William 19 AL 1m b 1831
Hedley 16 1m b 1834
Hugh 14 1m b 1836
Mary 12 1 f b 1838
Ellen 10 1 f b 1840
Amanda 8 1 f b 1842
Pernecia J? I? 6 –all Alabama, which indicates that he was in Alabama since 1831 1844

Sumter Samuel has the following children that I know of:

1) Elizabeth (who married Nicholas in 1829) is indicated as 20-29 in the Nash, NC Nicholas census.

Nicholas Arrington 2 male –5 1 30-39 1 f 5-9 1 20-29 But is 20-29 in Green the next decade. I am getting sick of the census mess back this far. So if she is actually 20-29 in 1840, she was born between 1810-1820.

2) James T – born about 1815

3) John W. 1817

4) Jesse P – who could have been later. Could there have been three wives?

5) Rachel Walton 1821

6) William R 8 Oct 1851 – which puts him a full year after the marriage to Susannah Campbell. But this may be that whoever was actually scribing the document for Jesse P’s estate must have gotten confused. I find another William R later in Sumter md Mary A Donner 1857, which would put his birth maybe 1837 or later. But then, Headly is also called “a brother” rather than half brother. And Headly was 16 in 1850, so born 1834, after the second marriage.

So really, there are only four older children. And in his will, it looks like James T isn’t alive anymore either. So all he’s got is John and Rachel left.

And Rachel seems to have been born after 1820. I’m guessing that James T is the oldest. So we’re looking for all boys.

In 1820, the above kids would look something like:

2m -10 1f-10 (if at all)

Elizabeth is either the oldest child, or she fits between John and Rachel, I would think. If she was married in 1829, she’d have to have been born at LEAST 1816. But more probably 1811 or so. James is 1815, maybe she was born 1813. We have no idea how many other children there might have been. Elizabeth is not even mentioned in Samuel’s will as one of his eldest children, because she was dead before Oct 1830, and he died in 1853. So how many others were gone before he was? According to his age indicated in the stinking census, he was 60 in 1850. We don’t really know where he was from or when he was first married – about 1813?

Samuel’s older kids:

James T Davis. There is one born 1815 in SC living in Gaston, Sumter, AL fam 893
1850: James T 35 SC (b.1815)
Mary 26
Matthias 8
James 3
Erasmus 1

1850: Choctaw

R. J. Walton 34 SC
R.L. 29 AL (b. 1831)
John H or W Walton 11
Elisabeth E 7
E.A. 4 f
Jesse P 1 m

There is an R J Walton who is living in Gaston, Sumter, AL in 1860

I27 fam 193 but it’s all initials.

R.J 45 SC
R L 38 Al? on down
J W 20 m (John W)
EE 17 f (Elizabeth E)
EA 13 f
JP 10 m (Jesse P)
JT 6 m
ME 4 f
RJ 1 m

John W. Davis who lived in Choctaw County:

1850:

Jno W. Davis 33 SC (b. 1817)
Margaret C 24 SC
M.E. Davis 5 AL
Ema L 3
Samuel Davis 0

1860: No Division, Choctaw, AL Pushataha

JW. 43
MC 35
ME 15
EJ 12
SE 10 should be Samuel, but says F
JW 8
TJ 5
MA 1 F

1880: Beat 3 Choctaw i3

John W. Davis 63 Sc Sc. SC 1817 SC SC. Sc
Magret C 55 SC SC SC AL SC SC
Thomas J 24
Ema J 30
Robert B 19
Next door: John W jr 29
And Samuel E 29
Martha 19
John W or M?

1850: Samuel Davis/Sumter i5 in Scattering. Fam 616

Samuel 60 farmer SC (1790)
Susan 34 f AL
William 19 AL 1m b 1831
Hedley 16 1m b 1834
Hugh 14 1m b 1836
Mary 12 1 f b 1838
Ellen 10 1 f b 1840
Amanda 8 1 f b 1842
Pernecia J? I? 6 –all Alabama, which indicates that he was in Alabama since 1831 1844

The Question of Samuel Davis

Find something:

Recent Comments

on the menu:

Blogroll

Buddies

Cool Places

Lovely lives

The Artist's Heart

Pages

Meta

Archives

Meta

Pages

Recent Posts

The Question of Samuel Davis

Find something:

Recent Comments

on the menu:

Blogroll

Buddies

Cool Places

Lovely lives

The Artist's Heart

Pages

Meta

Archives

Looking for this?