The “Aunts & Uncles” series of biographical sketches are Artificial Intelligence (AI) compiled narratives of selected individuals from my Genealogical database. The selected AI will used the RootsMagic Individual Summary from my Genealogical Software, Roots Magic. All genealogical data is my research material acquired over the past 46 years of research. Today's Web post is a Biography of James Francis Davis, Sr. (1743-1808) compiled with the assistance of Claude Sonnett 5 Median.
James Francis Davis Sr.
1743 – 1808
A Life on the Carolina and Kentucky Frontier
Born | 1743, Craven County (later Marion District), South Carolina |
Died | Before 5 February 1808, Mercer County, Kentucky |
Parents | Rev. David Davis (1717–1793) and Jane Miles (1720–1772) |
First wife | Margaret [maiden name unknown] (c. 1744 – c. 1768) |
Second wife | Jane B. [maiden name unknown] (c. 1762 – 1841) |
Migration | SC → Anson/Mecklenburg/Tryon Co., NC (c. 1762) → Mercer/Lincoln Co., KY (c. 1791–1792) |
Military service | Private, Bowman's Company, 1st North Carolina Continental Line (discharged 28 May 1778); Adair's Regiment, Cavalry, Kentucky Volunteers (1793) |
Relationship to Charlie Purvis | 5th great-granduncle |
Early Life and Carolina Origins
James Francis Davis Sr. was born in 1743 in Craven County, South Carolina – territory later reorganized as the Marion District. He was a son of the Rev. David Davis (1717–1793) and Jane Miles (1720–1772). Around 1762, James migrated northward into Anson County, North Carolina, together with his brother John. The portion of Anson County where the brothers settled was carved off in 1762–63 to form the new county of Mecklenburg, so James Davis appears in the earliest surviving Mecklenburg County records.
His first documented appearance in the county is a deed dated 21 January 1764, in which James Davis conveyed 480 acres on both sides of Sugar Creek to James Kerr (Mecklenburg County Deed Book 1, pages 622–623). Three months later, on 21 April 1764, he received a formal land grant of his own in Mecklenburg County, part of North Carolina's colonial land-grant program (Certificate range 1–616).
Marriage to Margaret and the Sugar Creek Lands
James married his first wife, Margaret (maiden name not yet identified), sometime before October 1765. The couple appear together in a run of Mecklenburg County land transactions along Sugar Creek between 1765 and 1766: a 3 October 1765 deed conveying 300 acres to James Johnston (Deed Book 4, page 333); a related 21 October 1765 conveyance of 500 acres to John Davis, apparently the source tract for the Johnston sale (Deed Book 11, pages 19–20); and a lease-and-release pair dated 23–24 October 1765 conveying 125 acres to Robert McCleary, on which Margaret signed with her mark (Deed Book 4, page 696).
A separate transaction the following year brought land into the family rather than out of it: on 6 October 1766, John Davis conveyed 114 acres on the north side of Rocky River to James Davis, land John had originally received from colonial governor Arthur Dobbs in 1762.
By 1768–1769 James had relocated to the newly formed Tryon County, North Carolina, while retaining his Mecklenburg County land interests; a deed dated 18 April 1769 shows him, then “of Tryon County,” selling 200 acres on Sugar Creek to Arthur Patterson. The couple's son Samuel was born in October 1768. Margaret appears to have died shortly afterward, as family research places her death around that time.
Revolutionary War Service
James Davis served in the American Revolution as a private in Bowman's Company, 1st North Carolina Continental Line, and was discharged on 28 May 1778. His service is recorded in North Carolina's Revolutionary War muster and payroll records (NARA microfilm M246), which document the pay, strength, and supply records of North Carolina Continental units between 1775 and 1783.
Second Marriage and Return to Mecklenburg County
Following Margaret's death, James married a second wife, Jane B. (maiden name not yet identified), born about 1762. The couple's first known child, Richard, was born in 1779. James and Jane eventually returned to Mecklenburg County, where the last North Carolina record of the family is a deed dated 1 December 1784: James Davis, planter, and his wife Jane, of Mecklenburg County, conveyed 114 acres on the north side of the river to Walter Pharr for one hundred and seventy pounds (Deed Book 12, pages 550–552). In the deed's formal covenants, James and Jane warranted that they were the “true lawfull and rightful” owners of the land and pledged to defend Pharr's title against all claims.
Removal to Kentucky
Around 1791–1792, James Davis and his family joined the westward migration into Kentucky, settling in the area that became Mercer and Lincoln Counties. He appears in Kentucky's post-Revolutionary War militia records: on 15 November 1793 he mustered as a private in Adair's Regiment, Cavalry Volunteers. He was also enumerated on Mercer County's 1800 tax list.
Final Years, Will, and Death
James Davis wrote his last will and testament on 23 December 1806 in Mercer County, Kentucky, naming his brother Samuel Davis as trustee and sole executor for the benefit of his family. The will directed that the estate be managed or sold for the support and education of his children, with each legatee to receive an equal share upon reaching the age of twenty-one, and his wife's share to be paid within a year of his death. The will was proved in Mercer County Court in February 1807 on the oath of witnesses Bennett Buke (Bull) and Samuel Davis.
James Davis died in Mercer County, Kentucky, before 5 February 1808 – the date on which the court-appointed appraisers, James Harlan, William Sevier, and Bennett Ball, completed their inventory of his modest estate. The inventory, returned to the court by executor Samuel Davis, totaled $159 and included a bay horse, a bay mare, fourteen hogs, eleven sheep, farm and blacksmithing tools, three beds with bedsteads, a chest, seven old books, pewter and earthenware, a table, and five old chairs – the working possessions of a Kentucky frontier farming household.
Family tradition holds that James's widow and two sons remained in Mercer County through the 1810 census, after which Jane moved with sons William and James Jr. to Madison County, Kentucky. By the latter part of the 1830s the family had migrated further south and west, likely traveling by river down the Ohio and Mississippi; William Davis settled in Obion County, Tennessee, while James Jr. and his mother continued downriver into Mississippi. Jane was still living in 1840, residing in Yazoo County, Mississippi – the last record of her.
Children
Child | Birth | Mother | Notes |
Samuel Davis | October 1768 | Margaret | Named as trusted witness to his father's 1806 Kentucky will alongside brother Samuel; family tradition holds a Samuel Davis served as executor of James's estate in 1808 (see Research Note). |
Richard Davis | 1779 | Jane B. | First child of the second marriage. |
William Davis | 1780 | Jane B. | Later settled in Obion County, Tennessee. |
Daughter (name unknown) | c. 1780s | Jane B. | Married or died before 1810. |
Son (traditionally “Hugh Davis”) | c. 1780s | Jane B. | Family tradition holds he migrated to Mississippi and later Louisiana. |
James Davis Jr. | c. 1790–1791 | Jane B. | Accompanied his widowed mother to Madison County, Kentucky, and later further south and west. |
Research Notes
Research Note The 1806 will names James's wife as “Polly Davis” and lists children Joseph, John, Jane, Thomas, James Harry, and Polly Davis – names that do not match the children (Samuel, Richard, William, an unnamed daughter, the traditional “Hugh,” and James Jr.) attributed to James and his wives Margaret and Jane B. in the compiled family narrative and family group sheet. This is a genuine discrepancy in the source material rather than an oversight in this biography, and it deserves a closer look: either the will belongs to a different, contemporaneous James Davis of Mercer County, or the compiled family tree has not yet reconciled a third marriage or a fuller set of children. Until the underlying will and inventory images are reviewed directly, the will's family details are presented here as recorded, unmerged with the family group sheet's children. All reference to the Will have been removed until the conflict in data can be resolved. One cited source (Edmund West, comp., Family Data Collection – Individual Records, Ancestry.com) lists James Francis Davis's birth year as 1743 in one citation and, in an endnote reproduction of the same record, a birth year of 1793 – evidently a transcription slip, since 1793 would conflict with his documented 1764 land grant and 1765 marriage. The 1743 birth year is treated as correct throughout this biography, consistent with the land, marriage, and military records. The Davis family's descent is given in Harry Alexander Davis's The Davis Family (Davies and David) in Wales and America (1927) as David⁴, Evan², Morgan¹ – i.e., James Francis Davis was of the fourth generation from immigrant ancestor Morgan David of Pennsylvania. This published genealogy remains the source of most of the family's earlier Welsh-Pennsylvania lineage claims and would benefit from independent verification. It been 218 years since the death of James Francis Davis, Sr. Over more than two centuries, it becomes almost impossible to identify every child, spouse, relative, residence, and personal artifact connected to an ancestor with complete certainty. Records may have been lost to fires, wars, courthouse moves, weather, neglect, or simple deterioration, while many births and deaths were never formally recorded at all. Names were often misspelled, abbreviated, reused across generations, or recorded differently by census takers, clergy, neighbors, and family members. Children born outside of marriage, those who died young, stepchildren, adopted children, and relatives raised in another household may be especially difficult to trace. Family stories, cemetery markers, probate files, land records, military documents, and later genealogical research can offer valuable clues, but they may also disagree because each source was created at a different time, by a different person, and for a different purpose. As a result, conflicts in ancestral data do not necessarily mean that one account is deliberately wrong; they often reflect the incomplete and changing record left behind by people whose lives were not documented as fully as we might wish. |
Sources
Harry Alexander Davis, The Davis Family (Davies and David) in Wales and America: genealogy of Morgan David of Pennsylvania (Washington, D.C.: H. A. Davis, 1927), 52 and 72.
North Carolina Land Grant Files, 1693–1960; State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh; James Davis, issued 21 April 1764, Mecklenburg County.
Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Deed Books 1, 4, 11, and 12 (various dates, 1764–1784); Register of Deeds, Charlotte, NC; digitized at FamilySearch.org.
Revolutionary War Rolls, 1775–1783, North Carolina; NARA microfilm M246; muster rolls and payrolls of American Army units.
U.S., Compiled Service Records, Post-Revolutionary War Volunteer Soldiers, 1784–1811; James Davis, Adair's Regiment, Cavalry, Volunteers, Kentucky, mustered 15 November 1793.
Kentucky, U.S., Tax Lists, 1799–1801; James Davis, Mercer County, 1800.
Appraisement and Inventory of the Estate of James Davis, deceased, 5 February 1808, Mercer County, Kentucky Court Records, page 319; FamilySearch.org.
Edmund West, comp., Family Data Collection – Individual Records [database on-line] (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations Inc., 2000), James Francis Davis.
Prepared by
Charles Purvis, Claude Sonnett 5 Median AI and Perplexity AI.
CPurvis1@gmail.com
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