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Volume 70 SAMUEL WATTS DAVIES        p97
In the latter part of the eighteenth century (probably in
1799) the family emigrated to the United States.6 In 1800
Samuel W. Davies was a grocer at 62 Beekman Street, New
York City. The next year he was a merchant at 38 Gold
Street.7
About 1800 Davies married Mary Ann (Stall) Thomas, a
daughter of John Stall of Philadelphia. Her family was well
to do and socially prominent. Her father may have been a
merchant in the China trade. Her mother, formerly Frances
Hiley, is said to have entertained General Washington and
to have danced with the Marquis de Lafayette. Mary Ann had
married Robert Thomas of Philadelphia, who died in the yel-
low fever epidemic leaving her a widow with three children.8
Samuel Davies' first son, Edward Watts Davies, was born
January 16, 1802, in New        York. Three other children fol-
lowed, a second son, Samuel Hiley, and two daughters, Agnes
and Mary.9
Mrs. Davies' sister Eliza Stall had married General Wil-
liam Lytle in Philadelphia on February 28, 1798, and moved
first to Lexington, Kentucky, where her son John S. Lytle
was born in 1800, and soon afterward to Williamsburg, in
Clermont County, Ohio. The town had been founded by Wil-
liam Lytle and his brother John in 1797. She wrote such de-
lightful accounts of her life at "Harmony Hill" to her father
that he came to visit the West with another daughter, Fran-
ces. At Williamsburg on January 30, 1802, Frances married...
(footnotes) -terian minister, married Rhoda Willington, and later moved with his family to
Cincinnati when he was called to be fifth pastor of the First Presbyterian Church.
He had another brother, whose name is unknown; a sister Anne, who married
George Blagden, an Englishman, and lived in Washington, D.C.; and a sister
Mary, who remained single. All emigrated to the United States. See also Davies
Family, a manuscript at the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio.
6 Daniels Manuscripts.
7 Longworth, Directory of New York for 1801 and 1802.
8 Robert L. Black, The Cincinnati Orphan Asylum (Cincinnati, 1952), 70-72;
Biddle, Philadelphia Directory for 1791; Black Manuscripts; Vital Records Index,
a manuscript card file at the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio.
9 John F. Edgar, Pioneer Life in Dayton and Vicinity, 1796-1840 (Dayton, 1896),
211-212; Charlotte Reeve Conover, Some Dayton Saints and Prophets (Dayton,
1907), 257-263 (information from this volume supplied by Miss Helen Santmyer);
Black Manuscripts.

Volume 70 p 98     THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Arthur St. Clair, Jr., a son of the governor of the Northwest
Territory. Samuel Davies moved with his family to Williams-
burg about the same time.10
In the new rural village in southwestern Ohio, Samuel
Davies took a position of leadership. He bought a farm of
1,300 acres along the East Fork of the Little Miami River.
He served as a member of the first grand jury empaneled in
Clermont County under the new state government of Ohio in
December 1803. He was twice a candidate for state represent-
ative, and although defeated, he had large and increasing sup-
port.11 He provided bond for the county tax collector. About
1804 he built a large stone house on Front Street. According
to local tradition it served as headquarters for military gather-
ings, and at such times the main room was set aside for the
use of courts martial.12 Probably he began his own career in
the state militia at this time. Later he was commonly known
as "Colonel" Davies. He also kept a store in Williamsburg;
but it must have been quite different from his stores in New
York. He probably carried a small stock of general mer-
chandise and farm implements brought from Cincinnati, and
took in payment the grain, flour, and hides his neighbors had
to use for money. From January 1, 1805, he began to buy
land as an investment, and his land purchases were numerous
in subsequent years.13 He is said to have been "busy" at the
land office in Cincinnati (his brother-in-law, William          Lytle,
 
10 Byron Williams, History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio (Milford,
Ohio, 1913), I, 279, 300-301; Thirey and Mitchell's Encyclopedic Directory and
History of Clermont County, Ohio (n. p., 1902), 101; Clyde W. Park, Williams-
burg and Its Founder (Williamsburg, Ohio, 1947); obituary of John S. Lytle,
Cincinnati Daily Chronicle, December 17. 1839; Black Manuscripts.
11 Western Spy, June 8, 15, 1811; Williams, Clermont and Brown Counties,
I, 323-324; Louis H. Everts. pub., 1795: History of Clermont County, Ohio
(Philadelphia, 1880), 75, 107, 123; indenture of Thomas Carneal and Wil-
liam Lytle to William Short, December 20, 1803, Short Family Papers, Library
of Congress.
12 Everts, History of Clermont County, 297.
13 Records of the Cincinnati Agency, Bank of the United States, 1821-1826, pp.
188-193, in Timothy Kirby Manuscripts, Historical and Philosophical Society of
Ohio. Additional evidence of Davies' land purchases exists in the Records of the
United States Public Land Office at Cincinnati now in the state archives at the
Ohio Archives Building, Columbus.