Garrett Brown Davis (1816 - 1911)

Born 16 Oct 1816 in Bucks, Pennsylvania, USA

Husband of Elizabeth (Keech) Davis — married Feb 1838 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Husband of Mary Nickerson — married 29 Jun 1869 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

Descendants

Died 4 Jul 1911 at age 94 in Chicago, Cook, Illinois, USA

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Biography

This profile is part of the Davis Name Study.

Garrett Brown Davis was born October 16, 1816, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, the fifth of seven children of William and Susan (Dracord) Davis.

During his life, he worked as a blacksmith, a tinsmith, a stovemaker, a hardware merchant. An inventor, he held patents for designs of a chimney cowl, a spring bed bottom and a water filter.

He married at least four times, and, according to a criminal complaint of adultery filed in 1865 in Chicago, he apparently did so without divorcing his previous wives. One of those wives, according to news reports, committed suicide later that same year after learning that he eloped with a new bride. Garrett B. Davis fathered at least 10 children with two of those wives--seven in Philadelphia between 1838 and 1854 with Elizabeth (Keech) Davis, and three in Chicago between 1867 and 1874 with Mary Nickerson Shanks Davis.

He died in Chicago on July 4, 1911, during a heat wave that would kill hundreds of people from Illinois to the East Coast. He was 94.