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A V.
?iVIlLA, TEXAS
[ 469]
DAVIS, EDMUND JACKSON
i;iiiic?>*rii?: Texas Almanac (1947); Austin States-, ;v 1?ebruary 1, 1908.
Davilla, Texas. Davilla, in western Milam ,;nty, was named for Miguel Davilla and laid ; In H. C. Chamberlain, who purchased the site . m the Davilla estate. Lots were sold with the .?liction that intoxicating beverages should never
?	fid in the town. In 1867 a former Confederate ' lirr from Mississippi came to Davilla and estab-,; cd Davilla Institute,which for several years . the leading educational institution in Milam , , unty. Davilla, one of Central Texas? most flour-
-:ni business centers in the i87o?s, began to de-r.c by 1890. In 1945, the town had five business
?	u:-cs, a post office, and a two-teacher school.
Margaret E. Lengert Davilla Institute. In 1871 and 1872 the Leon . :vcr and the Little River Baptist Associations -itrd in building a denominational school for their rritory consisting of Bell, Milam, Burleson, and :l> of other counties. Directed by R. L. Hood and . wife, Mrs. Emma Hood, the institute was )o-.ttd at Davilla in northwestern Milam County.
1S73 the two associations chartered a joint-stock mpanv. The char'cr provided that the trustees,
?	'juired to be members of the Baptist church, were
?	he appointed by both associations and that the hool was to continue as long as it confined its .ncfits to the advancement of the arts and Irnces and the promotion of useful knowledge.
ili'orge W. Baines became principal in 1874 and - W. Woody succeeded him in 1875. The school ? led about five vcars.
P.icliography: J. M. Carroll, A History of Texas ".?'??i'sts (1923); C. B. Wilson, History of Baptist Edu-.::onal Efforts in Texas (Ph.D. thesis. University of
?	Ml!, 1934)-
Davis, Andrew. Andrew Davis, son of Nancy McKclvey) and Daniel Davis,"'' was born on March io, 1827, in Jonesborough, present Red r iver County, Texas. He spent his early life in i.ruha, Shclbv County, and at Fort Lvdav near -i?cnt Honey Grove, Fannin County. He entered M-Kcnzie Coilege about 1841, and on October 12, :-44, was licensed to preach in the Methodist .urch. In December. 1847, he married Maria S. ! inn at Clarksville. He served in various circuits i Xortheast Texas, later became a member of the '???rllnvcst Texas Conference, and about 1S7S was ; pointed presiding elder of the Stcphenville dis-
?	il l. He was at one time a trustee of Southwestern I nivcrsity.,T Davis died February 13, 1906, and
.? buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Corsicana. His tobiography, an account of early life in Texas, I- published in the Southwestern Historical Quar-"r'y. XLIII (1939-1940). liinuOGRAPHY: Horace Bishop, ?Andrew Davis, Pio-*r Preacher and Christian Gentleman/? Texas Mcth-? Historical Quarterly, I (Octobcr, 1909); R. L. ? * (contrib.), ?Folk Life in Early Texas: The Autography of Andre,V Davis,? Southwestern Historical :'?rrly, XLIII (1939-1940); Methodist Episcopal South, Journal, North IVest Texas Annual Con-?kcc (1906).
Davis, Daniel. Daniel Davis, son of John Da-was born and grew to manhood on Duck River Knncssee. He married Matilda Tidwell and 'id lo Missouri, where she died. Davis married '??noy McKelvcy, probably of Sainte Genevieve, ?:--onri, on January 20, 1S18. They moved, later in ' i.\ first to Jonesborough (later to Pecan Point),
?	??-cut Red River County, Texas. There in 1832,
Houston visited in the Davis home en route Texas. Davis was a trapper and hunter for bear
and buffalo, hunting as far as the Wichita Mountains and the upper Red River. Late in 1832 after the death of his second wife, he moved along Trammels Trace'1' to Shelby County and settled on the Tenalia River. He took part in the battle of Nacogdoches"' in July, 1832, and in April, 1836, recruited a company of volunteers which was within thirty miles of the Texas Army when news of the victory in the battle of San Jacinto was received. While living in East Texas, Davis married his third wife, Mrs. Margaret Bascus. After the Revolution, he moved back to the Red River country and lived ten miles from Clarksville until late 1837, when he moved to his hcadright near Honey Grove in present Fannin County. He was killed by Indians in 1838.
liniLiocBApny: R. L. Jones (contrib.), ?Folk Life in Early Texas, the Autobiography of Andrew Davis.? Southwestern Historical Quarterly, XL11I (1939-1940); Macum Phelan, History of Early Methodism in Texas
(19^4).
Davis, Edmund Jackson. Edmund Jackson Davis was born in St. Augustine, Florida, on October 2, 1827. In 1838 he moved with his widowed mother to Texas, settling first at Galveston. He studied law in Corpus Christi and later practiced at Laredo, Corpus Christi, and Brownsville. Davis was in government service as deputy collector of customs with headquarters- at Laredo from 1850 to 1852. In 1853 he was elected district attorney at Brownsville and was made judge of the district in 1854, holding that position until the outbreak of the Civil War. His district included all of the Texas portion of the lower Rio Grande Valley.
Davis was defeated for election to the Secession Convention; his friends attribute to that defeat his alienation from the Confederate cause. He organized a regiment of cavalry composed mainly of Unionists who had escapcd from Texas into Mexico and, while recruiting for his regiment near Matamoros, was captured by a band of Confederates and narrowly escapcd hanging. His regiment spent most of the war period in Louisiana, but Davis led the unsuccessful Union attack on Laredo in 1864. He was made a brigadier-general in 1865, following the battle of Mansfield.'" After his return to Brownsville at the close of the war, he declined to accept from General Philip Sheridan the appointment as chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court.
As a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of i86G'1'r and as president of the Constitutional Convention of 1868-1 SOg,"' Davis advocated the disfranchisement of former Confederates, unrestricted Negro suffrage, and other radical measures of his party. He was the leader of the almost-successful movement to divide Texas into three states.
In an election held under the direction of the military commander in 1869, Davis was elected governor of Texas over A. J. Hamilton,,T also a former Union Army officer. Davis had the outspoken support of the military group and of the U. S. Grant administration; yet the official returns showed that he had led Hamilton by a little more than 800 votes in a total of 78,993. Davis was the state?s dictator for the next lour years. Riots and temporary reigns of terror resulted from the activities of the state police and the imposition of martial law. By the ?Carpetbag Constitution? the governor was empowered to appoint more than eight thousand state, county, and local officials, leaving
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