I have assembled some DAVIS Family genealogical data that I have acquired through several different sources.  It is difficult to prove a good share of it beyond 1850 as vital records were not generally required.  With this in mind there is a greater likelihood for error.  I needed a place to post this data so that other researchers of this historic American colonial family could view and challenge the data uncovered to this point in time.

Through the acquisition of two Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) records, I have discovered that the father of Job G. DAVIS was actually Joshua and not Nathan.   This profoundly changes the lineage as I had previously believed it to be.   Joshua was born in 1775 in Hopkinton, Washington Co., Rhode Island.  Joshua DAVIS (1775-1840) married Angelina "Amy" STRAIGHT (1779-1837) in 1795 and a couple of years later they migrated to Chenango Co., New York. The government had encouraged the Indians of upstate New York to settle a parcel of land or move west of the Mississippi. This exodus made a great deal of rich farm land available and in turn a large influx of New Englanders. As far as I know Joshua and Amy had their only child Job G. DAVIS, born sometime between 1799-1804. Job married Susan MONEY (1803-1871) in 1824.  

Job helped build and minister the first Episcopal Methodist Church in Lincklaen, New York.  This was a spin-off of the Seventh Day Baptist Church founded by Job's 4th great-grandfather, William DAVIS (b.1640) of Rhode Island. These sects later evolved into the Congregational Church and eventually the United (Methodist) Church of Christ. Job and Susan had Jerome A. DAVIS in 1843, the fifth of seven children I know of.  After the family was complete, they moved on to Waupaca County, Wisconsin around 1856 along  with Susan's father Ashel and several of the extended family members.   

After the start of the Civil War Jerome and his brother Eugene signed on with the Wisconsin 17th Infantry, Company I, at 19 and 16 years of age respectively. Upon their return in 1865, Jerome purchased Job and Susan's farm and married Eunice DICKINSON    in 1891.  My great-grandfather Orson J. DAVIS was born in 1867, the 3rd of three children. Jerome later married Charlotte Rose BUTLER, a widow, and they had four children together.  Orson married Stella A. KENT from a prominent New York family.  Stella and Orson engendered 6 children including my grandfather Walter Orson DAVIS born in 1891. Walter   married Francis "Fannie" HENRY who was the daughter of Philip HENRY and Lydia PETTIT and they also had six children.

The DAVIS family, in addition to the families MONEY, DICKINSON, KENT, HENRY, PETTIT, and BUTLER all migrated from upstate New York when it was known that inexpensive, fertile farmland was being offered in the state of Wisconsin in order to help settle and develop this wilderness. This pre-railroad era found many people migrating from New York to the upper Midwest via steamships through the Great Lakes. The Davis family settled and pioneered the New London area and has inhabited this Wisconsin community for the past 150 years.

The Davis clan was re-generated in Rhode Island and sprouted in New York, Wisconsin, and Minnesota where my brother Dale Walter DAVIS, son of Glenn George DAVIS, was born.  The DAVIS family has come full circle since William's birth in 1640 and returned to New England in 1983 with the birth of my nephew, Matthew Rooney DAVIS in Barre, Vermont.

I have yet to find exactly when William arrived in the U.S., why he came, on what vessel, and where he ported, but the research continues. I am researching the lives of William's son William DAVIS, Jr. (1663-1745), and his grandson John DAVIS (1692-1750). The line continues with John DAVIS, Jr. (1723-1792) and his son David Rogers DAVIS (b. 1744), the father of Joshua. These men all continued as ministers and deacons of the church founded by William and I an anxious to learn of their evolution.