MURRAY COUNTY FAMILIES

MURRAY COUNTY, GEORGIA FAMILIES

A. J. and Sarah Packard Davis

**I am sending you some marriage and birth information for my ancestors who lived at Pleasant Valley in Murray County, Georgia from before 1834 to 1864. A.J. and Sarah O. Davis were married at Pleasant Valley, and their six children were born there before the Civil War. The following narrative describes some of the story of the A.J. and Sarah Davis family:

Alfred Jasper Davis (1818-1869) was a son of Henry and Elizabeth "Betsy" (Miller) Davis. Henry Davis, from Roane County, Tennessee, appears in the 1834 Murray County Census with a household of fifteen. At about age 20, A.J. Davis was in the Murray County Militia for a few months, and served in the "Cherokee Indian Disturbance of 1837-38," according to the pension application filed many years later in 1894 by his widow, Sarah O. Davis (1825-1908), in Eastland County, Texas, and according to his Georgia Militia record. This must have been when the Cherokee Indians were gathered up before being forced on the "Trail of Tears" to Oklahoma.

Sarah Olive (Packard) Davis, was born in Charleston, SC on 25 Sept. 1825, daughter of Dr. Charles Chilion Packard and Sarah Gordon (Roulain) Packard. Chilion Packard (1791-1851) was a medical doctor, trained in New England. Chilion Packard was born in Plainfield, Hampshire County, Massachusetts on 17 March 1791, son of Revolution soldier Noah Packard (1752-1830) and Molly (Hamlen) Packard. Chilion Packard "went south" from Massachusetts to Charleston, SC by 1816, where he was apparently a doctor, taught school at Mt. Pleasant Academy according to archived Charleston Gazette newspaper advertisements of that era, and had a boot and shoe store in the early 1820's. In 1820 at Charleston, he was in "Commerce" and had the ten slaves from the estate of his wife's deceased first husband. Chilion Packard married Sarah (Gordon) Roulain (1786-1839) in Charleston on 4 Dec. 1818, by Rev. Aaron W. Leland, Pastor of the First (Scots) Presbyterian Church. Sarah Gordon Roulain was the daughter of deceased Charleston merchant, James and Martha (Wells) Gordon, and widow of wealthy brickmason Robert S. Roulain Sr. (1760-1816), of French Huguenot ancestry. Sarah Roulain in 1818 had three Roulain children: Sarah Margaret (born c1809), Abraham (born c1811), and Robert S. Roulain Jr. (1812-1898).

By 1828, Chilion and Sarah Packard, with three children, left Charleston and moved to Pickens District, SC, where Chilion Packard was a merchant and is in the 1830 Pickens Census. By 1839, they moved to Aiken, Barnwell District, SC, where Sarah Packard died on 15 Nov. 1839, age 53, buried St. Johns's Methodist Church Cemetery, and their son, Charles Chilion Jr., age 21, died not long thereafter. Chilion Packard is in the 1840 Barnwell District Census at Aiken, with his daughter.

Before 1842, Chilion Packard and daughter, Sarah Olive, moved to Pleasant Valley in Murray County, Georgia, where Sarah Olive Packard married A.J. Davis on August 16, 1842, by William P. Swanson, a Baptist minister and cabinet maker. Chilion Packard had a store at Pleasant Valley, identified as the Packard and Turner Store located near the 1911 Bryant Home, from the book, Murray County Heritage, and Chilion Packard was postmaster at Pleasant Valley 1842-49, followed by James L. Davis in 1849-50, and Chilion Packard's son-in-law, A.J. Davis in 1851-52. In the 1850 Murray County Census, Chilion Packard was head-of-household, a merchant, with seven slaves and considerable personal wealth. In 1850, A.J. and Sarah Davis and children lived with Chilion Packard, as did Elizabeth Davis (age 54), the mother of A.J. Davis, and three of the younger children of Elizabeth Davis (John, age 20; Eliza J., age 14; and Martha E., age 12). Sarah Olive Davis was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church (Southern Branch) at Pleasant Valley, and was a lifelong Methodist, according to her 1908 obituary. Dr. Chilion Packard died at Pleasant Valley, Georgia on 6 Feb. 1851, according to the A.J. and Sarah O. Davis Bible. I have not found a record of the burial location of Chilion Packard (1791-1851). The family story tells that the A.J. and Sarah O. Davis family continued to have the store at Pleasant Valley, but the 1860 Census tells that A.J. Davis was a farmer.

A.J. and Sarah O. Davis had six children, a son, and five daughters, all born at Pleasant Valley from 1844 to 1857. They educated their children well and had a nice farm at Pleasant Valley. A.J. Davis was a firm supporter of the Confederacy, but his brother, Henry Bazzle Davis (1817-1882) and Nancy (Pickens) Davis, over at Cleveland in Bradley County, Tennessee, were firm supporters of the Union. This is according to two letters we have written in April 1861 by Charles Chilion Davis, then going to school at Cleveland in Prof. Burketts School of Higher Learning, and living with his Uncle and Aunt Henry B. Davis. A long and very interesting letter, written in 1893 to his sister Corinne, that we have describes a visit back to Pleasant Valley by Charles Chilion Davis (1844-1923), after an absence of 30 years. His old friend, John Black (also served in the 39th Georgia, Company A), who had a store at Dalton in 1893, took Charlie Davis by buggy over muddy roads back to Spring Place and Pleasant Valley, where Charlie Davis saw the old home, with the inscription "W.D. Davis" still visible high up on the north chimney. During the Civil War, Charles Chilion Davis enlisted in 1862 at about age 18 and served in the 39th Georgia Infantry, Company A. He was taken prisoner at Vicksburg on July 4, 1863, was in the fighting at Missionary Ridge in Nov. 1863, and was with the 39th Georgia during the winter of 1863-64, when the regiment fell back to defend Dalton, Georgia. We have one letter he wrote during the war around the summer of 1862, after a fight near Chattanooga. At about age 20, he was arrested by Union soldiers in July 1864 in Murray County as a Rebel deserter, and was taken to a federal military prison at Louisville, Kentucky, where he took the Oath of Allegiance to the U.S., was released and ordered to stay north of the Ohio River until the war ended.

Around July of 1864, in face of the violent and lawless events ongoing in Murray County, A.J. and Sarah Davis took their five daughters, left their nice farm behind, and fled south to then Barber's Crossroads in Butler County, Alabama. After the war, Charles Chilion Davis joined his family at Barber's Crossroads, and the Davis family, ruined by the Civil War, did not return to Pleasant Valley.

At Barber's Crossroads, A.J. Davis made an agreement to live on the plantation of Mr. Jared Phelps Barber (1812-1893) and his wife, Mary Eliza (Morris) Barber (1818-1871), in a slave cabin. J.P. Barber also ran a store. The A.J. Davis family still lived next to J.P. Barber in the special 1866 Census taken in Butler County. Tallulah Agnes Davis, one of the daughters of A.J. and Sarah O. Davis, married Peyton Phelps Barber (1849-1929) in 1867 at Rutledge in Crenshaw County, Alabama. Barber's Crossroads in 1867 became Rutledge, the first county-seat of the newly formed Crenshaw County. A.J. Davis died at Rutledge on August 16, 1869, age 51, but his burial location is not known.

Peyton and Tallulah Agnes (Davis) Barber had eleven children from 1867 to 1891. They farmed at Rutledge, and Sarah O. Davis and her school teacher daughter, Corinne, lived with Peyton and Tallulah. Peyton and Tallulah brought their large family by train to near Staff, at Round Mountain, in Eastland County, Texas in October 1889, where Peyton bought a farm north of the Leon River and became a cattle farmer. Peyton and Tallulah Barber are my great-grandparents, buried at the city cemetery in Eastland, Texas. Sarah O. Davis and her daughter, Corinne Davis, came to Eastland County in 1889 with the Peyton and Tallulah Barber family, and Sarah O. Davis (1825-1908) is also buried in the Eastland Cemetery, in the Barber-Davis cemetery plot that holds 18 graves.

Alfred Jasper Davis and Sarah Olive Packard were married on August 16, 1842, Pleasant Valley, Murray County, Georgia. This is their marriage certificate.

Georgia
Murray County

To any Minister of the Gospel, Judge of the Superior Court, Justice of the Inferior Court, or Justice of the Peace, you are hereby authorized to join Alfred J. Davis and Sarah O. Packard in lawful bonds of Matrimony agreeable to the Constitution and Law of the State of Georgia under my hand and Seal this 16 day of August 1842. Thomas O. Austin C.C.O.

Georgia
Murray County

I certify the foregoing was duly executed before me this 10 day of August Eighteen hundred and forty-two.

Wm. P. Swanson MG

Children of Alfred Jasper Davis and Sarah Olive (Packard) Davis, all born at Pleasant Valley in Murray County, Georgia:

Charles Chilion Davis - born June 16, 1844, died Sept. 3, 1923, Union Academy, Montgomery County, Alabama, married Lula Adelle Cross on June 11, 1871, Montgomery County, Alabama. He was a school teacher and farmer, and remained in Alabama. His grandson, Mr. Charles Davis Powell (1907-1989), a resident of New Orleans for sixty years, researched the ancestry of his great-grandmother, Sarah Olive (Packard) Davis, through her father, Dr. Charles Chilion Packard, back to John and Priscilla Alden who came on the Mayflower to America in 1620 at Plymouth Colony. Charles Chilion Davis made one trip to Eastland County, Texas to visit relatives in 1921.

Ary Ann Davis - born July 8, 1846, died January 14, 1880, near the Leon River and Providence Crossing in Eastland County, Texas, married Alabama Civil War Confederate veteran Esquire T. Williamson on May 16, 1867, Crenshaw County, Alabama. They came to Texas in 1874.

Olive Lenora Davis - born December 10, 1848, died June 24, 1934, Big Spring, Texas, married Julius George Cross on June 11, 1871, Montgomery County, Alabama.

Tallulah Agnes Davis - born January 9, 1851, died May 24, 1906, near Staff, Eastland County, Texas, married Peyton Phelps Barber on November 14, 1867, Rutledge, Crenshaw County, Alabama. She was the mother of eleven children from 1867 to 1891. Her granddaughter, Sarah May (Barber) Alford (1917-2002), daughter of Robert Peyton and Mary Effie (Greenwaldt) Barber, kept family papers handed down and researched the Barber-Davis-Packard-Alden family history. Another granddaughter, Mary Corinne (Daniel) Stone (1818-2007) sent original historic letters in 1972 to the South Carolina Historical Society Museum, Fireproof Bulding, in Charleston, South Carolina, after making copies for the family. The papers are archived under "Dr. Chilion Packard Collection, Packard Family Papers, 1823-1893."

Sarah Emma Davis - born March 6, 1853, died at age 20 on February 27, 1873, Crenshaw County, Alabama.

Margarette Corinne Davis - born January 1, 1857, died February 12, 1932, near Plainview, Texas. After the death of her sister, Tallulah Barber, in 1906, Corinne married Peyton Phelps Barber on July 1, 1907, in Eastland County, Texas. She was a school teacher and known as "Aunt Teen" to the eleven children of Peyton and Tallulah Barber.

Thank you for your informative website.

**Norman Alford
Round Rock, Texas
January 31, 2008

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