Side lights of Maryland history: the Davis family and coat of arms

Side Lights of Maryland History
THE DAVIS FAMILY

AND COAT OF ARMS

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SIDE LIGHTS

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MARYLAND HISTORY

THE DAVIS FAMILY

AND COAT OF ARMS

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Side Lights of Maryland History
THE DAVIS FAMILY

AND COAT OF ARMS

(Reprinted from the Baltimore Sun of July 17, 1904, and by special

permission of the author, Mrs. Hester Dorsey Richardson,

by whom the article is copyrighted, 1904.)

Arms — Sable, three nag's heads, heads erased arg.
Crest — A wolf salient arg.

HE Welsh Davises derive their descent,
according to the best authorities, from
the Prince of Powis, the opponent of
Ethelfrid, King of Northumberland,

at the battles of Chester and Bangor, about the
commencement of the seventh century. Nine-
teenth in descent from Prince Brachwel of Powis
was Meilir Gryg, direct ancestor of David, son of
John ap David of Llivior, who, according to the
Welsh custom, assumed the modern surname of
Davies in the year 1637 when signing a deed of
family settlement.

English authorities, claim that this Welsh line
can be traced back to those brave Britons who
lined the coast of Kent to oppose the landing of

Julius Caesar, but the record as given starts a few
centuries before the Norman Conquest, beginning
with Prince Rhodri "Molwynog," the cognomen
meaning " Welsh blood being up." He settled on
the north of the Severn after his removal from
Cambrian Wessex, where many of the Britons
who preferred liberty to the foreign yoke followed
their chief.

His great-grandson, Rhodri Mawr, or "the
great," divided Wales into three distinct royalties
for his three eldest sons, Cadell, Avarawd and
Mervyn,

The Davises of Welsh origin, of Hope and
Marsh, in Shropshire, England, bear the following
arms : A goat argent, horned or, standing on a
child of the same, swaddled gules, and feeding on
a tree eradicated vert, a crescent for difference.

Crest — On a mount vert a goat couchant argent,
under a tree proper.

This line descends from David, whose son Hugh
ap David (Davis) of Hope had a son William ap
Hugh, whose heir Jeuan ap William of Hope
married Alson, daughter of John Hewes.

He was succeeded by David ap Jeuan, of Marshe,
in com. Salop, who married Eliun, daughter of
John Williams.

Reynold Davys, the son and heir, married Ellen,
daughter of James Morris, who had sons Edward
and James Davis. Of these, James married Miss
Martyn and had a son, John Davis.

Although the late George Lachlin Davis stated

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in his account of the early emigrants that the
Davises of Mount Hope did not leave the princi-
pality of Wales until after 1720, we find an early
Davis, with the very suggestive Welsh name of
Evan Davis, receiving a patent for 200 acres of
land on the Severn in the year 1672.

The similarity of the names of their estates
would suggest that the Davises of Hope in Great
Britain were forebears of the Davises of Mount
Hope in Maryland. This is an interesting point
for further investigation.

Whether or not the various original settlers of
this name came from Wales originally does not
concern us.

The Davis name has been prominent in the
annals of Maryland ever since the days of the first
notable assembly whose records have been pre-
served to us, for in the year 1637 John Davis sat
as a representative for St. Marie's Hundred, while
the several successive years Thomas Davis con-
tributed his services in molding the foundations of
our government.

These early members of the Davis family in
Maryland were from Virginia, and probably sons
of James Davis, of Henrico, Gentleman, who came
to Virginia in the good ship George in the year
1617. The records show that several of the
Davises came from the Old Dominion into Mary-
land, and were perhaps kinsmen of Sir William
Davis, of Bristol, England, to whom letters from
Virginia are still extant.

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After the resurvey between Maryland and
Virginia, lands in Somerset county were granted
these two brothers by the Lord Baltimore, their
estates being previously on the Accomac side.
His Lordship's rent rolls show that 7,000 acres in
Somerset county alone were patented to members
of the Davis family.

On both sides of the Chesapeake members of
this distinguished name were large landholders
and lived in the lavish way peculiar to the Colonial
gentry. The Davis men were from earliest times
conspicuous in the military affairs of the Province.
In the year 1667 we find Capt. Hopkins Davis
commanding a company of foote in Choptank and
Miles river, Talbot county, and Capt. John Davis,
of the same county, martialling his men against
attack. Among the men of this name who were
paid by the Assembly of Maryland for public
services to the Province prior to 1685 were George
y Davis, Griffith Davis, John Davis, Thomas Davis,
William Davis, Samuel Davis and Jonas Davis.

In the year 1694 John Davis was appointed
commissioner and justice of the peace for trial and
cause for Talbot county, of which he was also a
military officer.

While it has been claimed that the Western
Shore Davises did not arrive in Maryland until
much later than those on the Eastern Shore, the
Colonial records disprove this, as above shown.
As early as 1694 John Davis was a justice of
Prince George's county. The names of Samuel

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and John Davis appear in a list of loyal subjects
in Somerset county in 1689, in which year a
petition for a Protestant government was addressed
to the King. While the Davis men filled with
fidelity many civil offices of importance and
served their government on the Colonial field,
including the French and Indian wars, it is
especially notable for the large number of com-
missioned officers in the Revolutionary service.
Among these were Col. Richard Davis, 1778 ;
Capt. John Davis, Snow Hill Battalion 1777 ;
Capt. Phillip Davis, Thirteenth Battalion, Kent
county, 1778 ; Capt. Richard Davis, of Washmgton
county ; Capt. John Davis, of Wicomico Battalion ;
First Lieutenant Nixon Davis, First Lieutenant
Jesse Davis, of Worcester county, 1776 ; First
Lieutenant Amos Davis, of Washington county,
1778 ; First Lieutenant Lodowich Davis and
Second Lieutenant Griffith Davis, Middle Battalion,
. Montgomery county ; First Lieutenant James
Davis, of Dorchester county ; Philemon Davis, a
sergeant in the mounted company that marched
from Queen Anne's county February 3, 1776 ;
Lieut. -Col. Richard Davis, of Frederick county
troops, 1776 ; Ensign Rezin Davis, of Frederick,
1776 ; Second Lieutenant Richard Davis, Baltimore
county, 1776 ; Ensign Alexander Davis, com-
missioned second lieutenant August, 1777 ; Ensign
William Davis, Baltimore Battalion, 1777 ; Richard
Davis, of Washington county, appointed to pur-
chase provisions for the United States Army, 1778 ;

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Robert Paine Davis, ensign of Capt. Thomas
Watkins' company, on West river, in Anne
Arundel county, 1779. There were other officers
and no less than 50 privates by the name of Davis
who served in the Maryland troops during the
War of Independence.

While from the foregoing we can have no doubt
as to the patriotic blood of the Davis men, yet
more than once the name is enrolled among those
who held the scales of justice, and while so many
of the family were giving their lives to their
country's service Samuel Davis, of Kent, and
Richard Davis, of Washington county, were filling
the honorable and important office of justice of the
county courts in the year 1778.

In the journal of the Council of safety reference
is made to Captain Davis as "sea commander."
While one of the early rectors of William and
Mary Parish was Thos. Davis, we find Rev. Samuel
Davis preaching to the early Presbyterian flock in
Somerset county, where his name is still revered
as one who helped to plant the vine in the virgin
soil of the New World.

The various branches of the Davis family in
Maryland intermarried with the other representa-
tive Colonial families, and particularly is this the
case in the branch in Anne Arundel county. Here
we find Richard Davis marrying Ruth Warfield,
daughter of John Warfield and his wife, Ruth
Gaither, whose ancestors first settled in Virginia
and took part in the affairs of that colony. The

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children of this marriage of Richard Davis and
Ruth Warfield were Richard, John, Thomas, Caleb,
Elizabeth and Ruth Davis. Caleb Davis arrived
at man's estate, like others of his family, in time
to fight in the Revolutionary War. He married
Lucretia Griffith, daughter of Orlando Griffith and
his wife, Katharine Howard, daughter of Capt.
John Howard, Jr., and Katharine Greenbury.
Ruth Davis, sister of Caleb Davis, married Joshua
Warfield, the son of Benjamin. Elizabeth Davis
married John Marriott.

Other marriages of Davises with well-known
families was that of Ephraim Davis to Elizabeth
Howard ; Allen Bowie Davis and Rebecca Comfort
Dorsey, daughter of Chief Justice Thomas Beadle
Dorsey and his wife Milcah Goodwin.

As in so many old Maryland families, the
Davises of the present generation find their
paternal and maternal ancestors allied by kinship.
In the case of the Democratic nominee for the
Vice-Presidency we find his Davis forebears
intermarrying with the same blood that descends
to him through his mother, Louisa Brown, the
daughter of John Riggs Brown and Sarah Gass-
away. This Sarah Gassaway was the daughter of
Brice J. Gassaway and Katharine Warfield, Brice
J. Gassaway was a son of Nicholas Gassaway and
brother of Capt. John Henry Gassaway and Lieut.
Nicholas Gassaway, all officers in the Maryland
Line. Through his Gassaway ancestry Hon.
Henry G. Davis and his children, as well as Gov.

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Edwin Warfield, Hon. Arthur Pue Gorman, Mr.
William H. Gorman and others, trace back to the
Dorseys, Howards, Ridgelys, Worthingtons and
Greenburys. Contemporary with these and the
eldest living representatives of the John Riggs
Brown line are Mr. Vachel Brown and Mr. J.
Frank Brown, of Baltimore.

The various Colonial progenitors of the Davis
family of Maryland include those who filled every
important office in the gift of Lord Baltimore or of
the people, hence it is only history repeating itself
when we find in our own generation the repre-
sentatives of the old governing families of the
Province continuing to maintain the precedent set
them by their worthy forebears. Every man or
woman who is representative is as sure to have
strong, notable ancestors as that like produces
like.

Among the other distinguished sons of Mary-
land of this name that of Henry Winter Davis will
always shine forth as a bright particular star.
This eminent scholar, statesman and orator has
always been marked as one of the greatest of
Marylanders. His father was Rev. Henry Lyon
Davis, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and
president of St. John's College, at Annapolis.
His mother was Jane Brown Winter. Henry
Winter Davis married Miss Nancy Morris, daughter
of Mr. John B. Morris, of Baltimore, by whom he
had two daughters. Ephraim Davis, who settled
at Greenwood in the year 1755, had a son Thomas,

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who, during Washington's administration, raised
a company and marched to Pennsylvania in 1794
to assist in suppressing the whisky insurrection.
During his absence he was elected a member of
the Legislature, and was also an elector of the
Senate under the old Constitution. He was a
member of the Governor's Council and a most
important man in his day, being, among other
things, Associate Judge of the County Court.
His son, Allen Bowie Davis, like his father, was a
man conspicuous in the official life of his genera-
tion. He was president of the State Board of
Public Works, member of the constitutional con-
vention and one of the first trustees and later
president of the State Agricultural Society. The
Hon. David Davis, Associate Justice of the
Supreme Court, is another distinguished son of
Maryland. He was born in Cecil county, Mary-
land, and in early manhood removed to Illinois.
He was a member of the constitutional convention
and a delegate to the National Republican Conven-
tion in Chicago in 1860. Judge Davis was appointed
by President Lincoln Judge of the Supreme Court
of the United States in 1862. He was elected
United States Senator to succeed John A. Logan.
While, as we have seen, the name of Davis has
been distinguished in the legislative hall and on
the field, the Hon. Henry Gassaway Davis is the
first son of Maryland to attain the high distinction
of being nominated for the Vice-Presidency of the
United States. He was born on the family estate,

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Goodfellowship, located in Howard county, but
which originally lay in Anne Arundel county.
This estate had been patented to Joshua Brown
and Alexander Randall early in 1700 — about 1720.
Later Caleb Davis, father of the Hon. Henry G.
Davis, bought the part which had belonged to
Randall and which adjoined the lands of his
wife's family, the Browns. On this ancestral
estate our distinguished Marylander was born and
lived until the panic of 1835 swept independence
from his father, who sold his home and everything
he possessed that others might not lose through
him.

With a heritage of cultured and distinguished
ancestry on both sides and the high standards of
life set him by a worthy father our new candidate
for the Vice-Presidency faced the change of
circumstances bravely and went to work as many
a gentlemen's son had done before him and
because of the superior blood that was in him he
soon attained the success which comes of earnest
effort. From one post of honor to another he has
been chosen to the second highest nomination in
in this country, and it is with pleasure that Mary-
land claims him as her own son and the represent-
ative of some of her most distinguished families.
Among the distinguished forebears of Hon. Henry
Gassaway Davis are Col. Nicholas Greenberry,
Deputy Governor of the Province, 1692, Keeper of
the Great Seal and Member of his Lordship's
Council ; Col. Edward Dorsey, Keeper of the Great

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Seal, Judge in the High Court of Chancery, etc.;
Capt. John Howard, of the Colonial Militia ; Col.
Nicholas Gassaway, Capt. John Worthington,
Capt. John Brice and others of equal distinction.
Among the descendants of the early Davises of
Maryland are Hon. Henry Gassaway Davis, of
Maryland and West Virginia ; Mrs. Stephen B.
Elkins, Miss Katharine Davis Elkins, Messrs.
Elkins, Mrs. Arthur Lee, Miss Katharine Grace
Davis Brown, daughter of Lieutenant-Com.
R. M. G. Brown, United States Navy ; Mrs. F.
S. Landstreet, of New York ; Mr. John T. Davis,
of Elkins, W. Va. ; Miss Mary Winter Davis, Miss
Mary Dorsey Davis and Miss Davis, of Greenwood,
Montgomery county ; Miss Maria Trimble Davis,
Mr. George A. Kirby, Miss Mary Hanson Kirby,
Miss Mallonee, Mrs. George R. A. Hiss, Mr.
George William Kirby, of New York.

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Pre.s of W. F. RobctU Co.
Washington

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LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS

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