A Wilson Family Tree
Notes for Burris Kincaid Davis
The Parks manuscript gives his name as Burrus Kincaid; the Hillis/Abney/Franklin/Smith web site spells it Burris Kinkaid. Robert Davis and Stephen Landuyt have Burris Kincaid. His name is spelled Burris Kinkaid (actually, it looks like Burris Kinkiad) in the record of his marriage with Mary Amelia Haight on Ancestry.com.
His date of birth of 23 Nov 1826 comes from the Hillis/Abney/Franklin/Smith web site. Some sources have the same date, but with 1827 rather than 1826. The 1880 census mortality schedule gives his age at death as 53, which fits with the 1826 date.
From Stephen Landuyt:
Burris Kincaid Davis was born in 1826 to William Caldwell Davis and Sarah “Sallie” Van Lear. Burris Kincaid, often referred to as “BK”, was their fifth child and all were born in Augusta County, Virginia. In the 1830s, William Caldwell moved his family to Saline County, Missouri, due to widespread farm failures in Virginia. It would have been while living in Missouri that BK attended high school and perhaps college; however, his life in Missouri remains largely unknown to me. I am BK’s great-great-grandson, and a lifelong Californian thanks to BK’s decision to come West during the Gold Rush.
It is not known precisely when, or how, BK travelled from Missouri to California. In contemporary local newspaper articles BK is referred to as being a gold miner who arrived during the 1849 gold rush. In 1853, BK was living near the town of Shasta, which is today a California State Park and during the gold rush was a supply center for gold hunters and a route to the northern gold fields. A January 1854 notice in the Shasta Courier informed BK that he had mail waiting for him at the Shasta Post Office.
By June 1854, BK had relocated from Shasta County to Placer County, where he lived in the town of Ophirville. Soon after moving to Ophirville, BK became very active in Placer County Democratic Party politics. He gave speeches in support of Democratic candidates, became a member of the Central Committee of the Placer County Democratic Party, and became a candidate for the California Assembly in the 1855 general election. He narrowly lost that election but remained active and became President of the Ophirville Democratic Club.
Democratic Party politics in California during the 1850s reflected the long-festering schism that led to the Civil War. The Democratic Party in California was split between Union Democrats and Southern Democrats (i.e., Breckenridge Democrats and secessionists). BK was a proud Southern Democrat and he was not alone. Southerners comprised a significant part of the state’s population and held important positions in federal, state, and local governments during the period before the start of the war.
BK left Ophirville at the end of 1859 and moved to newly formed Mono County, where he lived in the town of Monoville in 1860 and 1861. There his business was supplying equipment to gold and silver prospectors in the areas that soon become Bodie, California, and Aurora, Nevada. BK also ran a second time for the California Assembly—this time out of Mono County in the general election of September 1861.
Mono County had three Assembly seats to fill in the 1861 election. Three Democrats ran in a field of ten candidates. The Democrats were C.W. Kendall, a Union Democrat, and A.H. Mitchell and B.K. Davis, both Southern Democrats. In the initial vote tally C.W. Kendall and B.K. won their races and A.H. Mitchell lost his.
Election fraud perpetrated by supporters of A.H. Mitchell was uncovered immediately. Ironically, Mitchell lost his race despite receiving all 510 fraudulent votes from a non-existent polling location named “Big Springs”. The conspirators needed to make that fraudulent polling place look legitimate, so they also included votes for the other two Democratic candidates. C.W. Kendall received 359 fake votes, and BK received 298 fake votes. Suspiciously, there were exactly zero votes for any of the Republican Assembly candidates. When the Assembly convened in January 1862, the election results from Mono County were successfully challenged and the fake votes removed. As a result, BK again narrowly lost his Assembly race; however, the Assembly expressly exonerated BK of any wrongdoing and stated clearly that BK had played no role in the election fraud.
The 1862 Assembly met in San Francisco rather than Sacramento, due to historic rains and resulting floods that had turned the Sacramento streets into Venetian canals. The rains during the winter of 1861–62 lasted so long, and created such extensive flooding, that California’s economy was devastated. In San Francisco, the Assembly met in the Merchants Exchange Building located on the corner of Battery and Washington Streets.A short walk from that corner is Grant Avenue (then named DuPont), and crossing Grant is a very short street named Harlan Place. In an apartment on Harlan Place lived 16-year-old Mary Amelia Haight with her aunt and uncle. It is not known exactly how BK and Mary Amelia met, but it is known that their paths crossed in San Francisco in 1862. On 9 Jul 1863, Mary Amelia, then 17, and BK, then 36, were married in Dayton, Nevada. Mary Amelia had moved to Dayton after leaving San Francisco in late 1862, and BK followed her to Dayton.
BK and Mary Amelia continued to live in the Dayton area until 1868. Later that year they moved a few hundred miles east to the White Pine Mountains near present-day Ely, Nevada. A silver strike resulted in the formation of White Pine County, and shortly after BK and Mary Amelia arrived, the town of Hamilton became the capital of White Pine County. BK and Mary Amelia raised their family in Hamilton. They arrived in Hamilton with one child, my great-grandmother, who had been born four years before their move to Hamilton. In Hamilton, BK and Mary Amelia had four more children. All five children survived early childhood except for their third daughter, Maybelle, who died shortly after her second birthday.
BK became the justice of the peace in Hamilton in 1868 and held that elected position for six years running. Although Hamilton was a rough-and-tumble mining town, Hamilton had its eye on becoming a respectable city. It had the most elaborate hotel in the state, a county courthouse, school, churches, Masonic Lodge, theatre, and expectations of someday rivaling San Francisco in size. As the justice of the peace in Hamilton, BK handled the crimes common to mining towns, which ranged from domestic disputes, to bar fights, to killings over disputed claims.
BK became a member of the Nevada bar and practiced law in Hamilton. In 1875 he was elected the district attorney for White Pine County. With his deputy DA, Horace D. Beene, who was a young Alabama lawyer who had moved west following the Civil War, they prosecuted a number of high-profile cases. Judge Davis, as he was professionally known, enjoyed a reputation for honesty and integrity.
BK died 25 Mar 1880 in Hamilton of “dropsy” (congestive heart failure).He had been in failing health for some time. Mary Amelia was carrying their fifth child at the time of his death. The Eureka Sentinel of Eureka, Nevada, published the following obituary on 26 Mar 1880:
“DEATH OF B.K. DAVIS. Mr. B.K. Davis, District Attorney of White Pine County, died at his home in Hamilton yesterday morning. The deceased had been in feeble health for a long time, and his death was not, therefore, unexpected. He was a pioneer of the Pacific coast, and an old resident of Nevada. He came to White Pine County with the rush in 1868, or 1869, from Dayton, Lyon County. While a resident of White Pine he filled various positions of public trust, and always with fidelity. He was serving his second term as District Attorney at the time of his death. He leaves a wife and a family of children, besides a large number of friends to mourn his loss. *** The SENTINEL is pained to learn of the death of Mr. Davis, and extends its sincerest condolences to the stricken family.”
BK was buried at Mourner’s Point, the Hamilton cemetery where his daughter Maybelle had been buried five years earlier. They were joined at Mourner’s Point by Horace Beene following his unexpected death in Hamilton in 1881.
Mary Amelia continued to live in Hamilton after BK’s death. In 1883 she married Stephen E. Starrett, who was a miner originally from Maine.Together they had three children in Hamilton. In 1888 they moved from Hamilton to the Mission District of San Francisco, where Mary Amelia lived until her death in 1918.
Note: Some of the information in these pages is uncertain. Please let me know of errors or omissions using the email link above. ...Mike Wilson
Page generated on 31 October 2023