MRS. MOLLIE E. MOORE DAVIS, Smith County, TX   

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Submitted by Debbie Brown - cottagehill@altavista.com  
21 May 2001  
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MRS. MOLLIE E. MOORE DAVIS "Some Biographies of Old Settlers."  
Historical, Personal and Reminiscent. Volume I  
By Sid S. Johnson, 1900: Sid S. Johnson, Publisher, Tyler, Texas  
Chapter LXXX. - Pages 328-331 - Picture    

The old citizens of Tyler remember Miss Mollie E. Moore, who was a 
school girl  here before the war.  Her poetical genius attracted 
attention in her girlhood,  before she had reached the age of fifteen.  
In fact, at the age of thirteen she  had written some sparkling lines, 
filled with the loftiest sentiment under the  inspiration of the god 
of the Muses.  Poetry is a gift; born, never acquired.  I  remember 
her well and kindly as a frail girl of sparkling genius.  All remember  
her with an affectionate regard.  She married Maj. Davis, and now 
resides in New  Orleans, Louisiana.  Mollie Moore Chapter, Daughters 
of the Confederacy, of  Tyler, was named after her, as a kindly 
sentiment of affection for this talented  and gifted lady.  A mention 
of her family, at one time honored residents of  Smith county, should 
find a place in this chapter.    

John Moore, son of Richard Moore and Senith Hartwell, his wife, was 
born at the  old Hartwell Homestead, (Hartwell Homestead 180 years 
old), at Oxford, Mass., in  1815; married in 1841, Marian Lucinda 
Crutchfield, of Virginia; graduated in  medicine, and settled on a 
plantation near Taladega, Alabama; in 1858, removed  with his family 
to West Texas, (San Marcos), and the next year to Garden Valley,  
and afterward to their country home, (Sylvan Dell).  

In 1861, Dr. Moore's oldest son, Thomas Oscar, enlisted in the 
Confederate army;  and in 1861, Hartwell, his second son--Thomas in 
the 7th Texas Infantry;  Hartwell in the 1st Texas, Hood's brigade.  
Both served during the war.  

In 1867, Dr. Moore removed to Galveston, Texas, where he died in 1879.  
Mrs.  Moore died in 1867.  

Thomas married Miss Sallie Thomas, of Washington county, and lives at 
Comanche,  Texas.  Hartwell married Miss Rosa Dawson, of Galveston, 
Texas; died in 1897, in New Orleans, Louisiana.  

Mrs. Mollie Moore Davis began to write verses at the age of nine years.  
Her  earliest poems published, appeared in the Tyler Reporter and 
Houston Telegraph.   She was educated mainly at home and in the 
schools of Tyler, Texas.  Her first  paid work appeared in the 
Galveston News.  Immediately, her work appeared in  magazines, 
commanding good prices.  

I clip the following from the current literature of 1899, as one of 
the compliments of this gifted lady, knowing that her many friends 
will read it with  pleasing interest; especially, those who knew her 
in Tyler before she was grown.  

"A dark-browed, old brick mansion in Royal street, with a dusky, 
tunnel-like entrance terminating in the picturesque bit of court yard 
common to the houses  in the French Quarter of New Orleans--an old 
house with a legendary past--is the  residence of Mrs. M. E. M. Davis, 
whose recent novel, "The Wire Cutters," may be  said to have scored 
one of the literary successes of the season.**  

"Mrs. Davis' early years were spent on the Alabama plantation of her 
father, Dr. John Moore, a cultivated and genial gentleman of the old 
school.  From her mother she inherited a taste for poetry, and she 
began at a very early age to scribble verse.  Her first book, a 
volume of verses entitled "Minding the Gap and Other Poems," appeared 
before she was sixteen years old.  With the close of the civil war, 
in which her father and brothers were engaged, the plantation passed 
into other hands.  Its memories were later embaled in a series of 
tender and pathetic sketches called, "In War Times at Rose Blanche." 
This book has been translated into French by Th. Bentzon (Madame Blanc) 
and published at Paris,  France."  

In 1874, Miss Moore married Major Thomas Edward Davis, of Va.  Shortly  
afterwards, they removed from Houston, Texas, to New Orleans, 
Louisiana, where  Maj. Davis became editor-in-chief of the New Orleans 
Picayune.  Mrs. Davis' poems, sketches and short stories published, 
attracted universal approval.  Her  first novel, "Under the Man Fig," 
won favorable comment.  Her short history of Texas, (Under Six Flags) 
was of great merit.  Her poems were songs of beauty.  Her gifted 
genius sparkled with gems of thought that breathed force and power of  
thought.  Her writings appear in the leading journals and magazines 
with  universal approval.  Mrs. Moore is now writing another novel. 

The writer knew her when a school girl in Tyler, and read with 
enraptured  friendly interest her early poems.  I remember when l
eaving Tyler as a  Confederate soldier the presentation of a flag to 
the first company that left  Smith county, and the patriotic poem she 
read with thrilling eloquence and pathos.