Just a little history: Only a cemetery monument recalls the Davis family

During the recent Wake Forest Cemetery Tour there was no one at the Davis family monument which stands somewhat apart though in the middle of the cemetery in section 1E near Crittendens and Caddells. But in the late 1800s and early 1900s the Davises were a very prominent family.

This family’s history begins with George Washington Davis, who at age 18 on July 1, 1861, enlisted in Company I, the Wake Light Infantry of the 1^st Regiment. He was wounded in action in Winchester, Virginia and was paroled at Appomattox Court House. He returned to Wake Forest where he became a merchant and married Mary Pernell, who died in 1908.

Known as G.W., he was the clerk of the Episcopal congregation which met monthly in Wake Union Church west of town. He was elected to the N.C. General Assembly in 1897 and was remembered by a granddaughter as “always the gallant politician, bowing low to the ladies as he rode by in his buggy.” His sister, Cornelia, never married and lived with him.

G.W. and Mary had three sons who lived in Wake Forest, Priestley, Andrew and John.

Town history says that G.W. built what is now called the Davis-Bush House on what was then Faculty Avenue, now North Main Street, about 1908, next door to his son Andrew Davis, who built the Queen Anne house about 1903. Two local carpenters, Tom Hicks and Patrick Alford, probably built both houses. The current resident of the Andrew Davis house, Joyce Davis who is not a relative, always calls out as she goes up to the attic, “It’s just me, Mister Davis,” because she is convinced he still remains in his house. More about Andrew Davis later.

Priestley Davis received his L.L.B from Wake Forest College in 1889. “He was tall and handsome,” daughter Margaret remembered, “often described as the most handsome man in the South.” He joined Proctor & Gamble Company and lived in Atlanta for several years where he met Zua Mitchell, also from the Wake Forest area. Her parents were Wiley P. and Geneva Pace Mitchell, and Geneva died when Zua was 7. After that she lived mostly with a cousin, Sarah Lillian Mitchell Perry, who was married to S. Berry Perry of Youngsville, a merchant, banker and farmer. One of Zua’s grandfathers was Calvin Mitchell, who had a large plantation near Rolesville and was the clerk of the Episcopal Church before G.W. Washington.

After Priestley and Zua married in 1910 they continued to live in Atlanta until 1915 when they moved back to Wake Forest. Priestley opened a furniture store in a three-story building and installed an elevator, the first in the downtown. The store had living room furniture on the first floor, bedroom suites on the second and caskets on the third. Priestley also maintained a hearse with a horse named Lucy and a driver (probably the family’s yard man called Uncle Joe) that families could hire for funerals.

It is likely the store was in what is now the southernmost part of The Cotton Company. The 1915 Sanborn insurance map shows a three-story furniture and hardware store; by 1926 the building was only two stories. The W.W. Holding Company cotton brokerage had its early office and warehouse here.

Priestley bought a house on South Main Street, a brick two-story with a large basement next to the Dr. Solomon Pace Holding house. The Holding house was torn down to make way for what is now Holding Park, and Zua Davis donated part of her property for the park when it was built in 1964. The house still stands next to the park.

Priestley died in 1923 from the complications of kidney stones, and his father, G.W., died soon after. Zua sold the business to a group of several businessmen and lived on in the South Main house for several years, raising her daughters Lillian, Dorothy and Margaret. During the Depression, she rented out the second floor to two college professors.

Andrew Davis was married to Elizabeth Hamilton and was a salesman who traveled frequently. Grady Patterson, who grew up in a house just south of Andrew’s, remembered Andrew as owning two cars, one “old Model T Ford with a rumble seat.”

Andrew was also mayor of Wake Forest five different times. In January 1925 he was elected by the town board to fill the two-year term of Mayor J.G. Mills, who resigned. Elected in May of that year, Davis resigned in November of 1926. He was elected mayor for two-year terms in 1929, 1931, 1933 and 1937.

John Davis, G.W.’s third son, was a pharmacist who, Margaret remembered, developed a drink similar to Coca-Cola but “Mother wouldn’t let Daddy put money into it.” John and his wife, Love Crawford, had a daughter named Mary Love Davis who, as a teen, taught her three cousins – Lillian, Dorothy and Margaret – the Charleston. She married Charles E. Brewer, a professor of chemistry and later dean of Wake Forest College who resigned in 1915 to become president of Meredith College.