Bio of Davis, John - Grady County, Oklahoma Transcribed by: Gene Phillips 18 Jun 2006 Return to Grady County Archives: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ok/grady/grady.html ========================================================================== USGENWEB NOTICE Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ========================================================================== JOHN DAVIS. Noteworthy as a typical frontiersman, of Oklahoma, and as a pioneer who for a quarter of a century has mingled among the settlers of the Canadian valley, is John Davis, of Tuttle, whose battle with the elements and social conditions in this section have extended from the period of his youth and vigor of his early manhood to the approaching shades of the evening of life. He is one of those rough and ready English characters whose environment in boyhood was such as to develop the very traits which mark his peculiarities. He was born in London about fifty years ago, a son of John and Elizabeth Davis, both of whom were of Welsh ancestry. His father was for many years superintendent of a department of the government mint. Both he and his wife died when their son John was a mere lad, leaving two other children, Jane and Elizabeth, who remained in England. At the age of eleven years, John Davis, who had previously attended school for quite awhile, assumed the responsibilities of his own care and keep. He became a seaman, enlisting before the mast on a mail boat plying between London and Alexandria, Egypt, known as the "Midway of London." Leaving her a few years later, he came to the United States on the ship "Kingfisher," of Boston, where he landed. Going directly to New York, Mr. Davis continued his seafaring life, hiring out to Captain Armstrong, commander of an ocean vessel, the James Foster Julia, New York. While on his first trip across the Atlantic, the inhumanity of the commander in throwing a crying baby overboard, and in other barbarities, caused him, and the remainder of the crew, to desert, and return to America on another ship. Returning to New York City, Mr. Davis abandoned the water for a career on land, and immediately came to Caddo, in the Choctaw Nation, from there drifting to the Canadian valley, where he has since made his home. Here Mr. Davis has been in the employ of many of the pioneer settlers, and for eight years was a member of the family of the first friend he found in this country, James H. Bond. When Mr. Davis came to exercise his right as a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation in the allotment of land, he chose his family domains largely in the territory over which he had ridden as a cowboy, selecting land adjoining that of his old-time friends, lying along the sinuous waters of the fair Canadian. Mr. Davis married, on December 28, 1891, Julia Toms, a full blood Chickasaw. She died February 6, 1904, leaving five children, namely: Dora Stella, James Russell, Nora Belle, Benjamin and John Henry. The education of these children has a prominent place in the father's heart, and the daughters are students in St. Elizabeth's Convent, in Purcell, while the older sons attend the Tuttle schools. In addition to his allotments near Tuttle, Mr. Davis' remaining family allotments were taken just west of Minco, the whole comprising 1470 acres of land. His home place is substantially improved, and admirably adapted for the raising of swine, an industry in which he is successfully engaged. Industrious to a marked degree, humane and sympathetic in disposition, fond of his friends, and devoted to his children, John Davis will be remembered among the humble but worthy pioneers of Grady county. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Return to Grady County Archives: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ok/grady/grady.html