Daniel D. Davis, a prominent agriculturist and stock raiser in Nemaha County, Nebraska, was born on July 21, 1833, in Carmarthenshire, Wales. The son of David and Maria Daniels Davis, he emigrated to the U.S. in 1856 with his wife, Rachel, and her family. After initially settling in Wisconsin, Davis moved to Nemaha County in 1863, where he expanded his farming operations and became a significant landowner. The couple had nine children. Davis was active in public service, including two decades as a justice of the peace. Rachel passed away in 1890.
Daniel D. Davis, one of the leading agriculturists and stock raisers of Nemaha County, Nebraska, was born in Carmarthenshire, Wales, on the 21st of July, 1833. In that country, his grandfather, Daniel Davis, was a man of wealth and a large landowner. He became the father of nine children, five daughters and four sons, all of whom married. One daughter, Hannah, married Thomas McLea, a Frenchman, and she is still living in Paris, France, aged ninety-three years. She is also very wealthy. David Davis, the father of Daniel D., was born in a shire adjoining that of Carmarthen, the birthplace of his son, and for twenty-one years served as the county clerk. He was a teacher and businessman and wedded Maria Daniels, by whom he had two children, the daughter being Dina, who became the wife of David Jones, to whom she was married in Australia. He was a master mechanic, engaged in erecting heavy mining machinery, and they became the parents of eight children, all of whom grew to years of maturity and are now living in Pennsylvania. Both our subject and his sister received excellent educational advantages in their youth, as their father was a college-bred man and one of the best scholars in his county. His death occurred in January 1880, at the old home in Wales, when he had reached the age of eighty-two years, and he left to his wife and children a good estate. His widow survived until 1896, when she too passed away at the old family home and also at the age of eighty-two years.
On the 30th of June, 1854, Daniel D. Davis married Rachel Davis, who, although of the same name, was not a relative. She was born in England, June 4, 1828, the daughter of David and Mary Davis, who were farming people and were the parents of eight children. In 1856, two years after his marriage, Mr. Davis, accompanied by his wife, her mother, three brothers, and four sisters, embarked on the vessel John Bright for America, sailing from Liverpool on the 27th of May, and on the 3rd of July following landed at New York. Making his way to Wisconsin, Mr. Davis purchased eighty acres of land in Iowa County, for which he paid five dollars an acre, and for eight years made his home in Dodgeville, engaged in speculating and buying stock. Selling his possessions there at the expiration of that time, he came to Nemaha County, Nebraska, making the trip with four yoke of oxen and one large covered wagon, eighteen days being consumed on the journey, including three days spent in Omaha, and they arrived at their destination on the 30th of June, 1863. Mr. Davis had previously visited Nemaha County in search of a location, and after his second arrival here secured one hundred acres of land at Barada, Richardson County, the purchase price being about three hundred dollars, but two years later he sold that land at a good profit and came to the vicinity of Aspinwall. His first purchase here was a tract of eighty acres, for which he paid five hundred dollars. Before two years had passed by, however, he had added one hundred and sixty acres to his original purchase, the latter being in its primitive state and costing sixteen hundred dollars. In 1892 he became the owner of one hundred and fifty-six acres, the purchase price being thirty-five hundred dollars, and he also has eighty acres lying a short distance west of this tract and twenty acres in the vicinity of Glen Rock, while in addition he has a timber tract of thirty-five acres. Throughout the period of his residence here, Mr. Davis has been engaged in both agriculture and stock raising, about two hundred acres of his place being devoted to corn, and he annually raises about one hundred tons of hay. He has a fine grade of Shorthorn cattle, with registered males, feeding from fifty to eighty head annually, his markets being at Chicago and Kansas City, and he also raises from one hundred to one hundred and fifty hogs a year, principally of the Poland China breed. Many buildings adorn this valuable estate, and he erected both his barn and house, the former being forty by forty feet and forty feet high, while the latter, which took the place of a box house, is a substantial frame dwelling erected thirty-two years ago. This farm also contains two large orchards, of five acres each, which yield an abundance of fruit in season.
The union of Mr. and Mrs. Davis was blessed with nine children, as follows: David, who resides with his father on the home farm; Thomas, also at home; Mary Davis, who is acting as her father’s housekeeper; Benjamin, who died at the age of thirty-six years; George, who was called to the home beyond at the early age of twenty-six years; John, who was born in Wisconsin and died there when one and a half years old; Albert, who died in this county at the same age; Maria, deceased in infancy; and Jonathan, who was born in Wisconsin in 1863, and his death occurred in this county at the age of thirty-four years, leaving one son. Mrs. Davis passed away in death on the 30th of July, 1890, aged seventy-two and a half years and twenty-six days. She was a faithful Christian woman, a devoted wife, and a loving mother, and her loss was deeply felt by all who had the pleasure of her acquaintance. In his political affiliations, Mr. Davis is a Republican, and for about twenty years he has served as a justice of the peace, while for two years he held the position of assessor. Although having reached the age of three score years and ten, he is yet vigorous and active and is now spending the evening of a useful life at his pleasant farm home.
Source: Lewis Publishing Company, A Biographical and Genealogical History of Southeastern Nebraska, 2 volumes, Lewis Publishing Company, 1904.