A Wilson Family Tree
Notes for John Davis
This is the biggest hole in the Parks manuscript. We know that there was a son named John from the wills of Walter and Martha Davis, but John is never mentioned by Parks. It's hard to imagine how this could have happened.
The first thought that comes to mind is that John could have been a sort-of "black sheep" of the family, whom nobody wanted to talk about, but that doesn't seem to fit with the fact that he was named an executor in his mother's will.
The only other possibility that I can think of is that Thomas Davis Parks was never around John much, so he just forgot about him. Even if Parks didn't know him personally, though, you'd think that others would have spoken of him. At the beginning of his write-up, Parks says that much of his knowledge of the family is from conversations with his mother and aunts, and you would think that they would have mentioned their brother John occasionally. Unless, possibly, he was on the outs with the rest of the family for some reason.
A number of family trees (see, for example, http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=mlysell&id=I10375) show a John Davis born in 1765 (or about 1765), who married Sarah (Sallie) Ewing, and died in 1818 in Washington County, Missouri. Note that John Davis's sister Sarah (Sallie) Davis married John Ewin/Ewing! (The family tree site just mentioned shows John and Sarah Ewing as siblings as well as John and Sarah Davis being siblings.) As discussed in the notes to Walter Davis, things seem most consistent if John was the youngest child, but that does not fit with a birth about 1765. William Cunningham Davis was born in 1765 (some sources say January 1766), and he is discussed extensively by Parks. However, Parks knew William well since William was still living in Augusta County when Parks was growing up there, and Parks even mentions living with William for a time. In addition, Parks later lived near William’s son William Caldwell Davis in Saline County, Missouri. From Martha (Cunningham) Davis's will, it is clear that John was still in Augusta County in March 1806 (when the will was proved). Parks was just six years old at that time. If John was only in Augusta County for a few more years after that, the omission of John from the Parks manuscript could possibly make sense if Parks didn’t know him well then because of being so young. Parks might not have seen him after that, either, since John moved to Washington County, Missouri, which is not close to Saline County. A possible hole in this theory, though, is that some of the information about the John Davis who married Sallie Ewing indicates that he spent time in Christian County, Kentucky, before moving on to Missouri, and you would think that his name would have come up in the stories about the family members living there--though John wouldn't yet have been there during the darkest period, after the deaths of James Davis, Brewer Reeves, John Ewin, and Sallie (Davis) Ewin. Parks says that his family moved to Christian County in 1816, but possibly John had moved on to Missouri by then.
For now, I am going to hold off including the info on marriage and descendants of John Davis and Sarah Ewing, but I would like to find out if there is any good information tying that John Davis to Walter Davis's family.
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
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