Slave-owner to Socialist

Week 45: #52 Ancestors – Bearded

By Eilene Lyon

The Slave Years

My 2^nd great-grandfather, Melville Cox Davis, was the oldest of five children born to Dr. Hamilton Cunningham Davis and Christina Mock. Hamilton married Christina in their home state, North Carolina, and shortly afterward moved to Lafayette County, Missouri, along with their parents and siblings. Christina gave birth to Melville in Missouri on April 24, 1835.¹

Dr. Davis bought a substantial amount of real estate and also built one of the early gristmills in Lafayette County along with Andrew Livengood.² In addition to land, his assets included enslaved persons. His parents and siblings also had enslaved people.

The doctor died suddenly at age 45, in 1847.³ The following year, Christina, his widow, lost her youngest child, a toddler named Charles. Hamilton and Charles share a headstone in the New Hope Cemetery.⁴

The 1850 census listed Melville as 15 years old. His 37-year-old mother still owned four people that year. In addition to her four surviving children, her household included a 24-year-old “gold hunter” and his wife and baby. Mordecai M. Cooke, age 28, who would become Melville’s step-father two years later, lived next door.⁵

Melville C. Davis married Sarah Rebecca Livengood, daughter of Andrew Livengood and Mary Taggart. Not long after, Melville’s sister, Elizabeth, married Sarah’s brother, John M. Livengood.

Melville also owned people. In the 1860 census, he had a 65-year-old male and a 12-year-old female, but the girl was listed as a fugitive.⁶ Livengood didn’t own anyone, but family lore indicates his father, Andrew, had been a plantation overseer in North Carolina, but he farmed and worked the mill in Missouri.

The drums of war began pounding in 1861, and the Davis and Livengood families were soon to be drawn into the conflict.

The War of the Rebellion

John Livengood enlisted in the 5^th Cavalry, Company F, as a corporal on August 11, 1862.⁷ Though prisoner records list Melville as being with the 1^st Missouri Cavalry, they are likely in error. Other records indicate Melville enlisted as a corporal in the 5^th.⁸ The Confederates formed the 5^th Cavalry in Lafayette and Johnson counties in 1862, and Melville probably joined at the same time and place as his brother-in-law. There is also an Andrew Livengood listed in Company F, undoubtedly John’s father.⁹

“5^th Cavalry Regiment (also known as the Lafayette County Cavalry) was organized during the late spring of 1862. The unit was assigned to General Shelby’s Brigade in the Trans-Mississippi Department. It skirmished in Missouri and Arkansas, served in Marmaduke’s Missouri expedition, was part of the operations against Steele’s expedition from Little Rock to Camden, then was active in Price’s Missouri operations… It disbanded in mid-May, 1865. The field officers were Colonels B. Frank Gordon and Joseph O. Shelby, Lieutenant Colonel Y.H. Blackwell…”¹⁰

The Livengoods may have served until war’s end, however Melville took a different path. He faced the Union forces at Newtonia (southwestern Missouri) and Helena (Arkansas).¹¹ After that, he most likely deserted and headed for home. Perhaps word reached him that his grandmother had died on September 26, 1863.¹²

In Sedalia, Missouri, he went to the Union garrison and surrendered to the commanding officer on October 6, 1863. They took him to Jefferson City, and tried him on November 6. The government sentenced him to hard labor for the duration of the conflict.¹³ They sent Melville to prison in St. Louis, Missouri, then in January 1864, transferred him to the Union prison in Alton, Illinois.¹⁴

When Alton had been closed as a state penitentiary in 1857, it had 256 cells. During the Civil War, 11,764 prisoners passed through over a 3-year period. Conditions were extraordinarily harsh and diseases such as smallpox were rampant. Over 1,500 prisoners died – a higher proportion than other Union Army prisons during that time.¹⁵

Fortunately, two intervening factors cut Melville’s stay there short. First, his wife, Sarah Rebecca, filed a petition to President Lincoln to have her husband pardoned. Second, due to the fact of his voluntary surrender, Major General J. M. Schofield, under General Order No. 86 Department of the Missouri, directed Melville to be released upon signing an oath and placing a $1000 bond.¹⁶ His release order came on February 29, 1864 and he was discharged on March 15, 1864.^17,18

After the War

Melville returned to his family, settling near Elmwood, Saline County, Missouri, and resumed life as a farmer.¹⁹ He and Sarah had 10 children, who all survived. Melville’s mother, Christina Mock Davis Cooke passed away on November 29, 1873 in Lafayette County.²⁰ They laid her to rest next to Hamilton Davis. When Mordecai Cooke died in 1896, he was buried on the other side of Christina.²¹

In 1885, Melville and his oldest son, Charles, took a train to Idaho and staked a homestead claim on Texas Ridge in Latah County. The following year, the rest of the family loaded up a boxcar with all their possessions, including livestock, and arrived at the station in Moscow, Idaho.²² They built a fine residence on the ridge, but Melville and Sarah later purchased a home in Moscow and moved there prior to 1900.²³

In 1903, Melville C. Davis ran on the Moscow Socialist ticket for First Ward chairman, but he did not win the election.²⁴ Melville worked as a carpenter during the Idaho period of his life. In 1906, he was working on a project in Asotin, Washington, when he received a blow from a hammer – did he hit his own thumb? The bruise soon turned into a blood infection destined to kill him.²⁵

Knowing the end was near, all ten children and his wife gathered at his bedside from as far away as Santa Cruz, California. He died on June 8, 1906 and the family took his body to Moscow for the funeral and burial.²⁶

 

Feature image: Melville Cox Davis from the 1893 Davis family portrait. According to 1863 – 1864 prison records, he was 6-feet tall with dark hair and hazel eyes.