January 26, 2024
Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry gives the 11th part in her series on Mayflower descendants that focuses on Katie Crocker and her family line, again featuring an account book of the Crocker family which covers the years between 1790 and 1843. Melissa is a genealogist who has a blog, AnceStory Archives, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.
Today I continue my series on the Mayflower lines of Katie Crocker of Barnstable, Massachusetts, which include passengers John Howland, John Tilley, Edward Winslow, Henry Samson, Francis Cooke, Thomas Rogers, and Stephen Hopkins.
To recap: I am researching an account book (1790 through 1843) of the Crocker family that contains both residents who descend from the Plymouth Pilgrims and those who married into the Mashpee Wampanoag Indian Tribe.
The rare item is housed at the Cahoon Museum in Cotuit, Massachusetts, and covers transactions with Mashpee residents including members of the Wampanoag Tribe. You can view the account book at Americana-Archives.
Here is a page from the account book, settling the estate of Katie’s 5th great grandfather Zenas Crocker, who died in 1807.
My last story ended with entries in the account book for Deacon Isaac Coombs. I am working on the family genealogy and will do a future series soon about the Mashpee Wampanoag lines.
Another name that shows up in the ledger is Daniel Davis Jr., regarding the settlement of accounts with cousin Zenas Crocker. Katie’s ancestors share several connections to families in the Davis line.
Daniel’s father, Daniel Davis, Esq. (1713-1799), was among the three guardians appointed for the Wampanoag Tribe in 1788. The other two were Simon Fish and Thomas Smith.
Their appointment was suggested by Katie’s 6th great grandfather Gideon Hawley. He himself had been appointed a guardian in 1763, along with Rueben Fish and Captain John Percival, and Hawley had since that time earned the tribe’s trust.
So much so, in fact, that in 1788 when the tribe questioned the need for guardians by writing a formal petition, Hawley agreed to present their petition to the General Court.
Twenty-four Mashpee men signed the petition that Hawley submitted on their behalf. In their petition, the Mashpee Indians made clear they would rather not have guardians at all – and if they must, then the guardians should have the highest integrity (such as Hawley had consistently shown):
“It is sufficiently mortifying to be under guardianship and considered as minors, but in case we must submit to it, we humbly petition, that we may have men of the first characters for religion and learning, abilities, integrity, and honor; gentlemen that we can confide in and look up to with respect.”
It was in response to this petition that Hawley recommended the three men appointed guardians in 1788, including Daniel Davis.
Davis was considered a gentleman and was highly esteemed in his day. His obituary says it all.
This article reported:
On the 21st inst. [21 April 1799] departed this life the Hon. Daniel Davis, Esq., Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, and Judge of Probate, in the county of Barnstable, in the 86th year of his age. A gentleman, who, through the course of a long and very useful life, has sustained a uniformly good character, and enjoyed a large share of public confidence and private esteem; and whose death, notwithstanding his age, is sincerely and extensively regretted.
An agreeable softness and native politeness of manners, springing from a social disposition, and peculiar mildness of temper, improved by the opportunities which he had enjoyed of mixing with good company, and dignified and enlivened by good sense and decent cheerfulness, rendered him, to his latest years, a pleasing companion both to old and new.
The obit described Davis as fair, accepting of many, vibrant in work, patient, and someone who until the end possessed “unshaken faith and calmful joy.”
According to the Buildings of New England Historic Database:
In 1739 Daniel Davis (1713-1799), recently married to his first wife Mehitable Lothrop (1717-1764), inherited land in Barnstable Village from Mehitable’s father Thomas as their wedding present. The young couple broke ground on a new family home that year. Daniel was a selectman, assessor, town clerk, and treasurer for Barnstable and represented it at the Massachusetts House of Representatives and Council.
Daniel Davis was the son of Joseph Davis and Hannah Cobb. He married 1st Mehitable Lothrop, daughter of Thomas Lothrop and Experience Gorham (a descendant of John Gorham and Mayflower passengers John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley).
Daniel married 2nd his cousin Mehitable Davis (widow of Dr. James Hersey, John Russell, and John Sturgis), the daughter of John Davis and Mehitable Dimmock (a descendant of Mayflower passengers John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley, as well as Elder Thomas Dimmock – who is recorded in the Barnstable town records for a 1644 agreement to purchase said town. He and his offspring played a significant role in the community).
This memorial marker to Elder Thomas Dimmock reads:
This boulder is erected as a memorial to Elder Thomas Dimmock, who with Rev. Joseph Hull received the charter for the land now occupied by the town of Barnstable. On this knoll he built a fortification house in 1643. Barnstable Tercentenary 1939.
Several scions descend from Daniel Davis, including a son who appears in the Crocker account book: Solicitor General of Massachusetts Daniel Davis Jr., who married Lois Freeman, daughter of Constant Freeman and Lois Cobb (also a descendant of John Gorman and Mayflower passengers John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley).
Among Daniel Jr. and Lois’ descendants is a son, Civil War Union Rear Admiral Charles Henry Davis Sr. (1807-1877), who married Harriette Blake Mills, daughter of Elijah Hunt Mills and Harriet Blake.
They left descendants, including: a daughter, Anna Mills Davis, who married U.S. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (a descendant of Mayflower passengers John Alden and Priscilla Mullins); and a son, Rear Admiral Charles Henry Davis Jr., who married Louisa Maria Quackenbush.
To be continued…
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Note on the header image: “Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor,” by William Halsall, 1882. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
Related Articles:
- Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 35 (part 1)
- Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 35 (part 2)
- Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 35 (part 3)
- Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 35 (part 4)
- Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 35 (part 5)
- Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 35 (part 6)
- Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 35 (part 7)
- Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 35 (part 8)
- Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 35 (part 9)
- Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 35 (part 10)
