Davis, Meredith Sr.

Male 1698 - 1751  (53 years)


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  • Name Davis, Meredith 
    Suffix Sr. 
    Born 1698  Anne Arundel Co., MD Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Male 
    Property Mouth Of Monocacy River Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Residence 6 Oct 1730  Westphalia, Prince George's Co., MD Find all individuals with events at this location 
    • Westphalia 500 acres
      surveyed 2/16/1670 for Robert Wells, lying on the west side of the main branch of the dividing creek of the Patuxent River at a bounded swamp wood tree of the land of Benjamin Walls
      possessors: Charles Burges 400 acres
      conveyances and re-surveys 10/6/1730 Meredith Davis and others from Charles Burges 100 acres
      folio 312
    Probate Sep 1751 
    Related to my family
    Religion
    • Quaker
    Residence Buckeystown, Frederick Co., MD Find all individuals with events at this location 
    • Mount Hope
    _UID 6A6235B50DB34C839C39990F208E853A2F13 
    Died Sep 1751  Prince George's Co., MD Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Person ID I3832  Buyer, Stier and Related Families
    Last Modified 3 Feb 2008 

    Family 1 Burgess, Ursula,   b. 13 Aug 1702, Anne Arundel Co., MD Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. Bef 1739  (Age < 36 years) 
    _UID 9330DA753DEA4E47B5700D80E22B61715F14 
    Children 
     1. Davis, Meredith Jr.,   d. 1771
     2. Davis, Charles
     3. Davis, Daughter1
     4. Davis, Daughter2
    Last Modified 10 Sep 2001 
    Family ID F1298  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family 2 Belt, Ann 
    _UID 185B950062E946E3B0F8EAE14E5A870826D2 
    Last Modified 10 Sep 2001 
    Family ID F1300  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  • Land Records
    merediths hunting quarter 1.jpg
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    merediths hunting quarter 2.jpg
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    merediths hunting quarter 4.jpg
    merediths hunting quarter 4.jpg

  • Notes 
    • Excerpts from "Pioneers of Old Monocacy:
      The Early Settlement of Frederick Co., Maryland 1721-1743
      by Grace L. Tracey and John P. Dern, Genealogical Publishing Co., 1987

      Meredith Davis, originally from Wales, was destined to become a mainstay of the Monocacy Quaker community. His wife Ursula Burgess, was the daughter of Charles Burgess and granddaughter of Colonel William Burgess who supported early Quakerism in Maryland. In 1726 Davis had 450 acres surveyed at the mouth of the Monocacy River. He called the tract "Meredith's Hunting Quarter" and here, twelve years later, he was appointed by the Prince George's County Court to keep a ferry across the Monocacy "next to his land at the mouth of the river." Seemingly he and his wife maintained a residence both here and on "Westfailure" in lower Prince George's County. On April 10, 1728 he had "Welch's Tract" surveyed beside the Monocacy. Early County Court records indicate that Meredith Davis and Thomas Griffith were the chief rangers for upper Prince George's County. In 1731 Davis became more closely associated with the "Monocacy Quakers" when on March 27th he had "Good Luck" surveyed as 400 acres next to Ballenger's "Josiah." Its first line was on the 17th line of Carrollton." Eight years later he surveyed 67 acres as "Friend's Good Will," also an adjoining parcel.

      In 1726 the New Garden Monthly Meeting, which had been established at Chester, Pennsylvania some eight years earlier, gave permission to the Quakers settled along the Monocacy River "to hold religious services on first days in the home of Josiah Ballenger, the Meeting to be called Monoquesey." This authorization that the services be held at Josiah Ballenger's and a reference to the Quaker Meeting House being "near Josiah Ballenger's" led historians for long years to believe that the Meeting House had actually been located on the land "Josiah." The research of Millard M. Rice has shown this to be in error, for on April 27, 1739 Meredith Davis transferred five acres of his "Good Luck" to William Matthews and Henry Ballenger as trustees of the Monocacy Meeting "to build thereon one or more house or houses for a Meeting Place for.... the People called Quakers." He may have made this grant after actual construction of the Meeting House had begun, for in late 1738 Allen Farquhar on "Dulany's Lot" was asking in his will that he be buried at the "new Meeting House" and we know of no other in this region at that time. Known as the Cold Spring Meeting House of Monoquesey," the building seems to have predated by at least four years Frederick County's first Lutheran log church, which was constructed in 1742 or 1743. The Quaker building was mentioned in a petition to the March 1745 Prince George's County Court from the "back inhabitants"" who sought a road from Isaac Leonard's to the mouth "of Minoccoccee," to run "from the main road above Isaac Leonard's along by Ballets Fout's so as to come into the main Minoccaccee Road by the Quaker Meeting House."

      Growth of the Maryland Quaker community was slow compared to the rapid influx of Quakers across the Potomac in Virginia. When Jeremiah Brown, William Kirk, Joseph England and John Churchman visited the Friends in 1734, they reported "that those Friends residing at Monoquacy and Oppeckon and thereabouts have and keep a Monthly Meeting for discipline amongst them and that it go under the name as they call it, Hopewell..." Although the Monocacy Quakers established religious services prior to those of the Quakers in Virginia, by 1735 there were so many more Quakers in Virginia than at Monocacy that Virginia's Hopewell was made the business meeting for the combined area.

      Between 1736 and 1739, Josiah Ballenger with his wife Mary and children Josiah, Jr., Sarah and James, together with his father-in-law James Wright, joined the Quaker movement to Virginia . His brother Henry Ballenger remained. So also did Meredith Davis who on December 1, 1739 for thirty pounds purchased "Josiah, the houses, yards, gardens, orchards, Fences and Wood." A few months earlier, on September 11th, Davis had leased his "Good Luck" to William Matthews, although its designation as the Davis Mill near present-day Buckeystown remained. Catastrophe struck, however, and in 1741 Davis had to have his land resurveyed and repatented to include additional land replacing that which was washed away by the Monocacy River. Illustrative of the inexactitudes of early surveying was the further Resurvey made by Thomas Cresap on November 21, 1745. He found that 6 acres of "Good Luck" lay foul on "Josiah," 80 more acres were on an elder survey called "Carlton" belonging to Charles Carroll, 10 acres of "Friends Good Will" were on "Josiah" and 78 additional neighboring acres could be incorporated in the whole Resurvey, which then would total 649 acres.

      In 1742 Meredith Davis signed the petition to divide Prince George's County. After his wife Ursula died, Meredith Davis married Ann Belt, widow of Thomas Claggett. They transferred to John Darnall on June 29, 1751 for 124 pounds 160 acres of "Good Luck." This represented acreage on the west side of the "Great Road that leads from the mouth of Monocacy to Frederick Town." The deed expressly omitted five acres, "Where the Quaker Meeting House now stands and already conveyed by the said Meredith Davis for the use of the said Meeting."

      Meredith and Ursula Davis had four children, but their two daughters died at an early age. Their sons Meredith Davis, Jr. and Charles made their homes along the Monocacy, although for a short period about 1745 Charles lived between today's Jefferson and Feagaville near what is now US. Highway 340. Charles Davis' daughter Ann married William Richardson, who died in 1755, and, as her second husband, Israel Thompson. Meredith Davis, Jr. married his step-sister Sarah Claggett, daughter of Thomas Claggett and Ann Belt, and together they had four children: Thomas and Ursula Davis, both born at Monocacy where they died unmarried in the 1790s, Richard Davis who died as an infant and Ignatius Davis . The latter had another resurvey made on the Davis land on April 13, 1798. He named it "Mount Hope," the name by which the property is still known at Buckeystown today. Ignatius lived on "Mount Hope" for many years and operated the Davis Mill near Buckeystown. He was married four times and was the father of about twenty-three children. One of these was Catherine Lackland Davis, who married Dr. Albert Richie.