My Genealogy Hound

ELY DAVIS is a venerable gentleman living at Fredonia, who has been an extensive farmer; is now interested in the cultivation of grapes, and makes politics a study, believing that the affairs of the Nation should command the attention of all patriotic citizens. He is a son of Harry and Mary (Stanhope) Davis and was born at Scio, Allegany county, New York, November 24, 1817. The paternal grandfather, James Davis, was a native of the old Bay State and was born about 1744. By trade he was a shoemaker and followed it in the town of Conway, then Hampshire county, Massachusetts, and served through the Revolutionary war, rising to the rank of major and served on Gen. Washington’s staff. Mr. Davis was the leader of a sect called the San Dominicans, and exercised a great influence for good over them. In 1767 he married Irene Ticnor, who bore him ten children, six girls and four boys: James, Cyrus, Harry, Charles, Eunice, Lucinda, Philana, and three whose names are lost. His wife died about 1810 and he then moved to the home of subject’s father in Allegany county in 1812, where he died four years later. The maternal grandfather, Samuel Stanhope, was born in Massachusetts in 1755 and was a life-long farmer. He married Mary Goodenough in 1773 and moved to Genesee county, New York, where his wife died in 1828, aged seventy-one years, and she is buried at Attica. Mr. Stanhope then removed to Monroe county and lived with a son until his Maker called him in 1839. He too served under Washington in the Revolutionary army and, at the time of his death, was drawing a disability pension. Mr. Stanhope belonged to the Baptist church, and reared a family of six children, Levi, Charlotte, Mary, Teresa, Luther and Zatta. Harry Davis, subject’s father, was born at Conway, Hampshire county, Massachusetts, August 24, 1780, and for a number of years was reared by Deacon Ware. When he attained his majority he moved to Whitestown, Oneida county, N. Y. and lived there for a year and then went to Angelica, Allegany county, on the Genesee river, where he got one hundred and sixty acres of land for two dollars and fifty cents per acre. The land was heavily timbered and the Indians were his only neighbors, while the howling of wild beasts at night made the music that lulled him to sleep. That was in 1805, and he remained upon the same property until he died, October 18, 1864, when eighty-four years of age. Prior to the second war with Great Britain, he joined a rifle company that was called into service but soon after discharged, so that the members could return home to protect their families from the ravages of the Indians. For service rendered the government, Mr. Davis received a land warrant, which he presented to the Baptist church. Politically he was a whig and was elevated to nearly all the town offices in the gift of the people, filling with special credit the positions of assessor and road commissioner and was also elected captain of militia. For many years he served as deacon in the Baptist church and at its organization in 1817 he was the first to be baptized in that country. On October 5, 1801, he married Mary Stanhope and she became the mother of eight children, five sons and three daughters: Charles was born April 27, 1803, and married Jemima Van Campen in 1825 — he is dead; Wells was born April 14, 1806, now dead, married Polly Wightman, July 21, 1825; Philana, born September 23, 1808, married Samuel Wheeler, February 22, 1825, and is dead; Nathan W., born February 19, 1811, married Sarah Waters, September 11, 1833, and is dead; Stata, born May 1, 1813, married John B. Norton, April 9, 1834, she too is dead; Lovina, born November 13, 1815, is dead, married Horatio N. Crandall, November 12, 1840; Ely Davis; Luther was born February 29, 1820, married Delana Rogers, June 17, 1847, dead; and three others died in infancy. Harry Davis lived to be eighty-four years old and died October 18, 1864; his wife survived until September 10, 1870, and passed away, aged ninety years.

Ely Davis was educated at the district schools, which in pioneer times were seldom held more than two or three months in each year and the scholars were often obliged to walk three and four miles to attend; during the summer he worked on the farm. In 1845 he bought his father’s farm and then secured the adjoining tracts until he owned two hundred and ninety-five acres in one piece.

September 14, 1843, he united with Mari M. Mosher, a daughter of Seba Mosher, of Otsego county; by their union came two children: Eliza Ann, died when six years of age, two days after her mother, who passed away October 25, 1851, and both were buried in the same grave at Belmont, New York; and Elizur I., a hardware merchant at Belmont; he married Evangeline S. Lamphere, September 11, 1872. On December 1, 1853, Mr. Davis wedded Betsey M. Reed, a daughter of Robert Reed, a farmer of Allegany county, By her, three children were born: Eliza M., born April 5, 1855, and died November 8, 1856; Harry E. is a book-keeper, stenographer and telegrapher in a machine shop at Belmont — he married Eliza E. Ryman; and Ella, at home.

In 1873 Mr. Davis came to Chautauqua county and bought a desirable property in Fredonia, leaving his son to manage his farm at his former home, but four years later he sold it to the latter and now attends to a grape orchard of ten acres in the town of Pomfret and some interests in timber lands located in New York and Pennsylvania. Politically Ely Davis was a whig as long as that party was an organization but is now a stalwart republican, and since 1839 has been a communicant of the Baptist church.