John Hughes Davies (1834 - about 1916)
Submitted by
Carol Ann Richie and Betty Richie Hansen
John Hughes Davies (our great grandfather) was born in 1834 in Kentucky. He was the youngest child of John N. Davies and Elizabeth Hughes and the grandson of Nicholas Clayton Davies and Elizabeth Crawford. His maternal grandparents were John Neville Hughes (a lieutenant in the Revolutionary War and a major in the War of 1812) and Ann Meriwether.
His father died about 1848, when John was around 13 years of age. His mother, Elizabeth Hughes, died four years later in 1852. John’s uncle, John Hughes, was appointed his guardian after his mother’s death.
It is unknown how he spent his life prior to his marriage. The family assumes he served in the military. John needed a new start after the Civil War. He and Celia Eliza Cook married in 1865, left Kentucky, and moved to Perryville, Perry County, Arkansas, where he taught school. They remained in Arkansas until about 1879 when they moved to the Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory, according to census records. John bought a farm outside Paris, Texas, where his family lived, according to family records. The US Census says the family lived in the Choctaw Nation, but birth records show Elvena, our grandmother, was born in Paris, Lamar County, Texas, in 1879.
The land runs into the Indian territories started about 1889, so it is assumed that John had permission from the Indian community to live and/or work in the territory as a teacher and surveyor. These Indians did educate their children, had farms, and settlements, and non-Native Americans had already begun to move into the territory. The Davies family was near the future towns of Ardmore and Atoka, Oklahoma, and Paris, Texas.
John Hughes Davies was a surveyor as well as a teacher. He taught school in various places in Texas and the Choctaw Nation in one room school houses (much like what we saw on "Little House on the Prairie"). In those days, school teachers and preachers were highly respected, since so few of the settlers could read or write.
John and Celia had seven children. The three youngest were born in Texas. The children were: Mary Frances, Florence, Olive Brown, Henryetta, Elvena Hughes (our grandmother), John A. and Jesse C. The family eventually moved from the farm to Paris,Texas, where the children had more advantages. The oldest son, John A. Davies, married and had one daughter, Nancy Davies.
When a teenager, Jesse, the youngest son, and some other boys went out on Halloween and were caught vandalizing a neighbor's pumpkins. When his father confronted him, Jesse ran away, which was a terrible sorrow for his parents. Years later, his brother John met Jesse on a train and gave him his mother's address, as well as his own. On this same train, John suffered a heart attack. No one ever heard from Jesse, and John might have imagined this encounter as a by-product of his heart attack. The family, however, chose to believe that he did see Jesse.
It is unknown when John Hughes Davies died, but our mother (Christine Wharton Richie), born in 1913, said she remembered him. That would make his death about 1916. It is assumed he was about 80. He was buried in Paris, Texas.
Photos of some of the people in our branch of the family are in our "Photo Gallery".
References: Family letters and memories.
Paper with references prepared by James D. Boyle, MD