Benton Co., AR - Biographies - Goldsmith Chandler Davis

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Goldsmith Chandler Davis, a prominent nurseryman and fruit grower of 
Osage Township. Benton Co., Ark., was born in the "Hoosier" State in 
1844, and is a son of Benjamin F. and Ruth J. (Chandler) Davis, who 
are of Welsh and Irish-English descent, respectively. The father was 
born in Ohio in 1820, and was married in his native State. After 
residing alternately in Ohio and Indiana until 1853 he moved to St. 
Paul, Minn., where he was engaged in merchandising one year. The 
following eleven years he kept hotel in Scott County, and was also 
engaged in farming and running a lime kiln, supplying the city of St. 
Paul with its lime for several years. In 1867 he became a citizen of 
Bentonville, Ark., where he kept a hotel, and was also postmaster for 
about eight years. In 1878 he immigrated to Los Angeles County, Cal., 
and has since been engaged in raising oranges, grapes and small 
fruits. His wife was born in Ohio in 1830, and is a descendant of 
Oliver Goldsmith, the poet. She is the mother of five children: 
Goldsmith C.; Phoebe, wife or R. C. [p.825] Brown; Rose A., Nannie and 
Benjamin F. Goldsmith C. was educated in the public schools of 
Minnesota, and came to Arkansas with his parents. His father owned a 
farm of eighty acres near Bentonville, and the mother in the spring of 
1869 planted a pint of apple seeds, which Goldsmith C. grafted in the 
spring of 1870. He gradually increased his stock until the cold winter 
of 1880-81, when all his trees were killed. He immediately set to work 
with renewed energy, and purchased eighty acres of land where his 
house now stands, and, without paying a dollar down, began setting out 
trees. He now has the largest nursery in the county, if not in the 
State, and is the owner of 640 acres of good land. His orchard 
consists of 20,000 trees, and his nursery stock comprises 1,000,000 
trees from one to four years old. He is doing a highly satisfactory 
business, and his trees are shipped to nearly every State in the 
Union. In 1875 he was married to Miss Sallie West, a daughter of A. A. 
West, of Carroll County, Ark. She was born in Alabama in 1856, and is 
the mother of five children: Betsey Trotwood, Benjamin Franklin, 
Catherine, Lou Duskey and John Chandler.