THE EARLY GENERATIONS

The origins of this family of hardy pioneer stock are as diverse in background as they are conjoined by their source. Davises, Ramseys, Browns and Groomses. The Corbins of Maryland, by way of Pennsylvania; the Bosleys, Meadowses and Slaughters of Blue Ridge West Virginia. And the Vernons of old Virginia and the Carolinas...old South all!

From Pennsylvania by way of the Appalachian piedmont and the Cumberland Gap, or the tidewaters of the Chesapeake Bay region came these immigrants of Scots-Irish, Welsh, English and German origin. To a wild new territory inhabited with mystery, danger, and hardship. Whether fleeing famine or persecution, or seeking a new-world fortune, they all came to this dangerous land of opportunity to start anew, leaving for the most part a familiar home and culture, the English islands governed by confusion and prejudice, or the German lands ruled by rigid elitist princes.

All coming together into the family of Donna Lenora Davis and her babies, the Bosleys, Vernons and Corbins. These are their long and distinguished bloodlines...

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THE GREAT-GRANDFOLKS

The Davises and the Ramseys of this family inhabited Harrison, Randolph, and surrounding counties in north central West Virginia. Their spouses, the Groomses and Browns, hailed from adjoining Marion and Taylor Counties.

This part of the country is heavily-wooded rolling hills through which flow the Monongahela, Tygert's Valley and Cheat Rivers, and their myriad tributaries, not too far from the grand Ohio River and the borders of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Old Virginia.

It is adequate farmland, which lies in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountain range, a divide that separates the Virginia heartland and gives refuge to a new bloodline of the Scots-Irish. The land is underlain by thick coal sheets of the Pittsburgh coal shelf, which extends from western Pennsylvania into Ohio and northern West Virginia, and provided a back-up industry to farming. It also accounts for a large measure of West Virginia's human misery and poverty.

With the progress of this family's evolution, the counties in which they settled changed their borders, their names, and their characters with the growth of the territory.

Census records indicate the Davises to be a Harrison County family, some of whom later removed to the Groomses Marion County. The Ramseys can lay claim to an early heritage in that part of Monongalia County that later became Taylor and Randolph Counties, while the Browns set root in Barbour County -- all adjoined by border and history.

Before West Virginia cleft itself from mother Virginia during the Great Rebellion, that part of the Appalachian chain was all the western reaches of Augusta County, Virginia. Augusta was made a county in 1745 from Orange County. Throughout the sift of events, the area was first a political entity in 1774 called West Augusta District, broken off from Augusta County. This was reorganized two years later and in 1776, Ohio and Monongalia Counties were formed. Harrison County followed in 1784, formed from part of Monongalia. Then in 1787, Randolph County sprang from Harrison County. In 1842 came Marion County; Barbour County was founded in 1843; and Taylor County in 1844 from parts of Barbour, Marion and Harrison Counties. The marriage, birth and death records of each county date from the county's formation, with earlier families of the territory being deposited in the parent county's archives. The tracing and documentation of the family's histories are incumbent upon the knowledge of these historical facts.

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The lands of these counties are beautiful rolling hills, valleys and levels with stands of oak, walnut and several other species of timber foresting the lands through which flow tributaries of the Tygert's Valley, Cheat and Monongahela Rivers. Those residents of the land who didn't farm mined coal. The county seat of Randolph County is Elkins. Taylor has Grafton; Barbour County has Beverly; Harrison County has Clarksburg; the Marion County seat is in Fairmont, and Morgantown is the county seat for Monongalia County.

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In continuing my genealogical research, I dutifully recorded the siblings and children of all the lineal ancestors, but had determined early on that I would record only collateral family as far as great-uncles and aunts, and their first generation offspring. This business of recording collateral family has to have its limitations. Only in certain cases was this policy waived, as in the case of cousin Nellie Grooms-Talkington, who was Grandpa Dallie Davis's first cousin, and my first cousin twice removed. She is also the only remaining blood relative of Dallie Davis's side of the family that I presently know, except for a couple of nephews of Nellie's who I had no inclination to look up for reasons best left between Nellie and me.

Then there are some of my Vernon cousins, whose ties to me are as new and unique as is the fact that I had managed to learn the identity of my father, James William Vernon, who ties my various Vernon cousins and me together.

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I was in a quandary as to whether to proceed with this genealogy by each generation of a family to its earliest known ancestor, or to record each antecedent as numbered in the genealogical tables. I have decided to take them by their assigned family tree number, according to the numbering system I explained in the preface. Starting with M#12 Davis and all the M-numbers (and their spouses); followed by the 2F families (2F#1 is my older half-brother, and is entitled by primogeniture if the author is so inclined); the 3F families, and so on. The author's 1F family will be the final chapter.

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M#12 JAMES W. DAVIS

M#6 Dallie Davis's parents were M#12 James W. Davis and M#13 Delphia M. Grooms. Book 1, page 138 of the Harrison County, West Virginia General Index to Birth Records lists on line 13 simply "Oct 1868 Davis, James W. *Name of father- M(r.) George W. Davis *Name of mother- Mary Ann Davis". All the listings on this page in the book for the name of "mother" give Davis as the last name.

On 29 April 1890, Marion County Court clerk T. B. Carpenter issued a marriage license application for James W. Davis, age 21 years, of Harrison County to marry Delphia M. Grooms, age 17, of Marion County. George W. Davis, father of the groom, was the supplier of information.

On 4 May 1890, James and Delphia were married by Elias Robinson in Marion County.

The 1900 census record for Mannington District, Marion County, West Virginia, Vol. #17, Enumeration District #59 [58?], page 5, line 46, lists Delphia, 28 years old and born in December of 1871, as widowed with one child. She is 'enumerated' with her father, Lewis J. Grooms, and mother Lodema. Also listed is her son, Dallie A. Davis, who was noted as the grandson of Lewis J. Grooms.

Dallie Davis's cousin, Nellie Grooms-Talkington had recalled that James W. Davis was buried "...over there at Doly...up there on that hill. That's on the Lumberport-to-Wallace Road. Up on the hill, same side [of the road] as the store...Ted Rogers retired, built himself a house up on the hill, on this side of the hill. Up in the woods. The cemetery, right across...from the man's house. Somewhere down along the road. If you go to that store...there's a cement bridge...crosses there, goes up around, winds up around the hill to the cemetery. It's on the same side that the...store is on."