Viewing page 20 of 521

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

[[newspaper clipping]]
Davis, Venerable Son of Pioneers, Protects Indian Burial Plot With Care

Is Descendant of Long Line of Seventh Day Baptist Church Leaders

By WILBUR C. MORRISON

A man of peace, though militant in contention for justice and right, Septemius Orlando Davis, venerable resident of Harrison county, whose home is near the County Line station of the Monongahela West Penn Public Service Company's Clarksburg-Weston interurban traction line, truly exemplifies the teachings of a noted and almost unbroken ancestral line of Seventh Day Baptist ministers back to 1684 in American history.

Davis's father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-great-grandfather were all regularly ordained ministers of the gospel.

This aged citizen of Harrison county is also daily reminded of the keen sense of justice exercised by his ancestors, when before their migration to Harrison county at an early day they insured peace and safety with the red savages who then roamed the wilds of West Virginia by purchasing from the Six Nations of Indians the latters' right and title to all the regions from which that state was later created, also a daily reminder is that of an Indian graveyard located on a hilltop on his farm within calling distance of his residence, route 2 Jane Lew, W. Va.

Preserves Graveyard

Davis has ever treated this burial ground as a holy spot, never permitting it to be disturbed in any way and years ago plum trees were set out to protect it from vandalism and destruction.  It is a place of human dead, he says, and entitled to preservation, although those buried there were Indians.

The surface of this primeval burial ground is filled with round holes, indicative of upright graves, from which it is inferred dead aborigines were interred in standing posture and possibly fully dressed and outfitted for a resumption of life's activities when they reached the fabled Happy Hunting Grounds.

Existence of the graveyard and the fact that burnt earth has rolled up from a depth of several inches as the fields on the Davis farm have been ploughed convince the owner of the farm that Indians or others maintained their habitation there long before the Hackers, Hugheses, Sleeths and other pioneer white settlers came into the region a few years before the Revolutionary war began in 1776, as the Davis and other farms there were then an unbroken forest.  Davis expresses the belief that a prehistoric race lived and cultivated lands there and then after its abandonment of the region as a habitat, a second forest grew before the colony of white men came to settle there.  He is inclined to the opinion that the place was an Indian camp, however, as numerous Indian implements of warfare and hunting and domestic devices have been unearthed in his fields as they were being prepared for cultivation, and not least of all these buried relics were several human skulls.

Descendant of Founder

S. Orlando Davis descends from William Davis, founder of the Seventh Day Baptist church in America, whose descendants are numerous in Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, California, Arkansas, West Virginia and other states, in fact from coast to coast in the United States, with centers of population and church and college activities at Salem, W. Va.; Alfred, N. Y.; Madison, Wis.; and Plainfield, N. J.  Even in Harrison and Doddridge counties, they are so prolific, that an intention on the part of the writer to make mention of all of them in this article had to be abandoned because of the almost insurmountable task.  Even only a partial account of the direct line of S. Orlando Davis' descent is given herein.

William Davis, founder of the family in America, was born in 1663, in Glamorganshire, Wales, whose father, William, along with three brothers was a member of the aristocratic Penfay Baptist church in Glamorganshire county.  One of the four brothers was a high sheriff, another was deputy sheriff, a third was county recorder and the fourth was chaplain to the judge of the county-town of Cardiff, Wales.

On King's Bench

From another family tracing, it is ascertained that William Davis, father of the American pioneer William Davis, was lord chief justice of England and served on the king's bench in Ireland.  He died in 1687.  He is said to have won two coats of arms for deeds of valor for his country.

Educated at Oxford university, England, William Davis, progenitor of S. Orlando Davis, began preaching at the age of 18 years, having joined the Quakers, and soon thereafter sailed with a company of Quakers to join William Penn's colony near Philadelphia, Pa., arriving in 1684 in America, but in 1691 he was one of forty-eight persons who became followers of Geore Keith, a Baptist-Quaker, and five years later, having changed his views, he was baptized into the Baptist church at what is now Roadstown, N. J.  Soon thereafter he joined the Pennepek Baptist church near Philadelphia and became its pastor.  In the early part of 1698, he identified himself with the Seventh Day Baptist organization in Pennsylvania and remained in that faith up to the time of his death, in the latter part of 1699 organizing [missing words at edge: ? ? ? ? ?] nomination at Pennepek, where he had been expelled February 17, 1698, for maintaining that Christ was neither human nor divine, but of a blended nature, like "wine and water in a glass," according to Corliss Fitz Randolph's history of Seventh Day Baptists, published in 1905.

Established Church

In 1706, the Rev. William Davis located at Newport, R. I., and in 1713, at Westerly, that state, moving later to Stonington, Conn., and from that place to Shrewsbury, N. J., where he established the Shrewsbury Seventh Day Baptist church in 1745, and died at Manasquan the same year, aged 82 years.

The Rev. William Davis first married Elizabeth Brisley.  They were the parents of four children: Martha, William, John and Mary.  His second wife was Elizabeth Pavior, before her marriage.  There were seven of the second set of children, Thomas, Joseph, Lydia, Edward, Elizabeth, James and William.  The first William died before the second of the name was born.  The second wife was a progenitor of Orlando Davis, through her son James.  She died about 1760 at Middletown, Pa.

Six of the sons of the Rev. William Davis are said to have been ordained, and at least seventy-two in his direct line are said to have become ministers.

Son a Minister

The Rev. John Davis, born in Philadelphia, Pa., and member of the pioneer's first set of children, died August 18, 1754, at Shrewsbury, N. J., where he served as the pastor of the first church his father founded.  He married Elizabeth Maxson, a daughter of John and Judith Clark Maxson, August 25, 1715.  She was born November 7, 1695, at Westerly, R. I., and died in April 1751, as Manasquan, N.J.  He was a revolutionary soldier.

William Davis, who was born March 11, 1754, at Middletown, Pa., came to Salem with the first Davis colony there and died in 1834, near Springfield, O., was a lineal descendant of the pioneer William, and was a son of James Davis, great-great-grandfather of S. Orlando Davis.  He was known in the Salem section as William "Bottom" Davis, living on bottom land.  He married Elizabeth Havens in 1773 in Shrewsbury, N. J., a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Havens.  She was born in 1774 and died in 1834 near Springfield, O.

Ship Destroyed

It is said of this William Davis that he and his father, Quakers, did not believe in bloodshed and fighting against the king. They were shipbuilders and had their yards on the New Jersey coast.  William manned their ships, and was commander of the ship that brought Lord Howe into New York city.  After landing, according to
[[/newspaper clipping]]