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Below is a family biography included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of St. Francis County, Arkansas published by Goodspeed Publishing Company in 1890.  These biographies are valuable for genealogy research in discovering missing ancestors or filling in the details of a family tree. Family biographies often include far more information than can be found in a census record or obituary.  Details will vary with each biography but will often include the date and place of birth, parent names including mothers' maiden name, name of wife including maiden name, her parents' names, name of children (including spouses if married), former places of residence, occupation details, military service, church and social organization affiliations, and more.  There are often ancestry details included that cannot be found in any other type of genealogical record.

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John M. Davis is numbered among the well-known farmers and stock raisers of Franks Township. He was born on the farm on which he still lives, in 1845. His parents Cornelius and Eliza (Holbert) Davis, were natives of Kentucky. The former came to Arkansas in 1828, and remained one year, then returning to Kentucky, where he was married in 1832, moving permanently to this county, and engaging in farming. At that time the country was very thinly settled, the nearest market being Helena. He first entered 160 acres of land, but at the time of his death, in 1868, at the age of sixty-three years, owned 600 or 700 acres. John M. Davis grew to manhood on his father’s farm, his early educational opportunities being limited, as the senior Davis was one of those men who believed in acquiring a competency before spending it. When eighteen years old John went to Kentucky, and attended school for about two years. After the war, in which he did not take part on account of poor health, he returned to Arkansas and resumed farming, and is now conducting the old homestead which his father entered and improved on coming to this State, and where he was born. Mr. Davis has been twice united in the bonds of matrimony. First, in 1868, to Mary C. Folbre, who died in 1871, leaving one son, Thomas C., who was killed in a railroad wreck in 1887. Mr. Davis took for his second wife Miss Hester A. Davis, in January, 1874, a daughter of Rev. Arthur Davis, of Western Tennessee. They are the parents of ten children: Benjamin, Arthur W., Mattie P., Drucilla, John, Susie, Eliza, Myrtle, Claudia and Elizabeth. Mr. Davis is one of the most prominent Democrats of this locality, and is now the efficient sheriff of St. Francis County, and a man whose name is a terror to law breakers. He and wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Mr. Davis is also connected with the Masonic order.

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This family biography is one of 87 biographies included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of St. Francis County, Arkansas published in 1890.  For the complete description, click here: St. Francis County, Arkansas History, Genealogy, and Maps

View additional St. Francis County, Arkansas family biographies here: St. Francis County, Arkansas Biographies

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