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Davis line

Joseph Henry Davis

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Last reviewed
4 June 2026

Schoolteacher and farmer — the five-year-old named as a life in the 1824 Garrynew lease, who carried the Davis line from County Wexford to Hastings County, Ontario.

Life Story

Schoolteacher and farmer — the five-year-old named as a “life” in the 1824 Garrynew lease, who carried the Davis line from County Wexford to Hastings County, Ontario.

Parents: Joseph Davis and Catherine (Butler) Davis Spouse: Sarah (Bolton) Davis (married about 1847) Children: George, Joseph Henry, Robert, Deborah Ann, Sarah Jane (Davis) Boyle, Agnes, Eliza Margaret (Davis) McLean, and William John Davis Siblings: William, George, Dorothea, John, Jane (Davis) Young, Henry, Ann Catherine, and Edward James Davis

By the recollection of those who knew him, Joseph Henry Davis was a small man with white side whiskers, fond of horses — both riding and racing them — and fond of liquor. He taught school in Ireland and again after he emigrated, before turning to farming in Hastings County.1

He was born on 12 July 1819 in Ireland, most likely in County Wexford — the county named on both his own and his brother William’s death records — though probably not in Garrynew townland itself. His parents were Joseph Davis and Catherine (Butler) Davis.234

When Joseph was five, his father — also a Joseph Davis, then of Moneylane (Moneylawn) townland, County Wexford — entered him into a land transaction that would one day become a genealogical anchor. The lease, dated 7 October 1824, was made between his father and Henry White of Clonganny for 104½ acres in Garrynew townland, County Wexford. As was common at the time, it was set to run for the lifetimes of three named “lives”: Stephen Ram, an eight-year-old boy of Ramsfort; the Rev. Henry Stopford, son of the Earl of Courtown; and young Joseph himself.3 (He is the five-year-old whose father’s Wexford leases are traced in the companion article, From Moneylawn to Garrynew.)

The lease also helps explain why Joseph begins to appear in the Garrynew voter lists once he reached adulthood. Whether through the family leasehold itself, a derivative interest, or occupation connected to the holding, the younger Joseph was tied closely enough to the Garrynew property to appear beside the elder Joseph in the early 1840s voter registries. On 26 March 1841 the register listed a single Joseph Davis of Garrynew;5 by 9 October 1841 it listed two, the younger Joseph having reached twenty-one — a later register recording his registration date as 22 October 1841.46 Before long the list reverted to a single Joseph Davis of Garrynew.6 The voter lists suggest Joseph Sr. had disappeared from the qualification by early 1842, and the 1845 valuation confirms that Catherine Davis was then the household head next to Joseph Hopkins.7 Taken together, the records point to Joseph Sr.’s death between late 1841 and 1845, perhaps as early as 1842.

That departure may not have been entirely a matter of choice. Between 1847 and 1851 the White estate evicted other Garrynew leaseholders, among them Fossey Bolton and Joseph Hopkins; the Davises may well have moved pre-emptively to avoid the same fate.3

By 1851 Joseph, then thirty-two, had begun again in Elizabethtown, Leeds County, in Canada West. He taught school there and shared a home with his twenty-one-year-old wife, Sarah, and their two young children, George (3) and Sarah Jane (1). A seven-year-old, Kate Boulton, also lived with them — at once Joseph’s niece and Sarah’s half-sister.8

The double tie behind that arrangement is worth untangling. Joseph had married Sarah Bolton about 1847, when she was around seventeen. Sarah’s father, William Bolton, had also married Joseph’s sister Dorothea — so Joseph’s wife was at the same time his sister’s stepdaughter. William and Dorothea Bolton lived in Elizabethtown too, with two of their children, though the household seems to have been under strain: one of their daughters was living with Joseph and Sarah, while two more were lodged with their grandmother, Catherine Davis, and other Davis kin in nearby Augusta Township, Grenville County.910

Joseph soon moved to Augusta Township himself, teaching at S.S. No. 20 Augusta from 1854 to 1859. He began with a third-class certificate and a salary of £37, responsible for fifty-two pupils in a single-room log schoolhouse; by the time he left in 1859 his salary had risen to £168 a year.11

By 1861 he was farming 135 acres in Concession 10, Lot 37 of Augusta Township, alongside his brother William — possibly leasing from John Jolly, who received the land as a Crown grant in 1870. He later moved to a larger farm of 200 acres in Wicklow Township, Hastings County, across Lots 12 and 13 of the Third Concession,12 which the Crown granted to him in 1876.1314

Joseph remained on the Wicklow land for many years. As his sons George, Joseph, and Robert grew up, they established farms nearby.15 His wife Sarah died in 1886, and his son George predeceased him in 1901.1617 By 1891 Joseph was living with his youngest son, William; in his final years he moved in with his son Robert, who took over the farm.18 Joseph Henry Davis died of diabetes on 1 February 1902, aged eighty-two.19

Research Notes

Birth year. The birth month and day (12 July) come from the 1901 Canadian census. The year is harder to pin down, but the weight of evidence points to 1819: the 1824 lease records him as aged five (implying 1819, if the month is right); the 1851 census gives his age as 31 (and, having been taken late in 1851 or early in 1852, again implies 1819); and his 1902 death record gives his age as 82, once more implying 1819. Only his October 1841 voter registration hints at 1820. I take 1819 as the best-supported year.

Name. Joseph appears simply as Joseph Davis in the Irish lease and voter records used here. The middle name Henry is retained from later family usage and should be treated as part of the family identity unless or until a contemporary Irish or Canadian record is found that clarifies whether he used it formally.

Birthplace. Joseph’s son reported his birthplace as County Wexford on the 1902 death record, and Joseph’s brother William was likewise recorded as born in Wexford. The 1824 lease places the father at Moneylawn townland — which lies in County Wexford, in the Gorey area near the Wicklow border — so Wexford is the most likely county of birth, though almost certainly not Garrynew townland itself.

Mother’s identity — and the “Bell” question. The death record of Joseph’s brother John names their parents as Joseph Davis and Catherine Butler, both born in Wexford; the informant was John’s wife. This is the basis for identifying Catherine’s maiden name as Butler. It also resolves a long-standing confusion. After Joseph Sr.’s death, probably between late 1841 and 1845, the widowed Catherine emigrated and, in the 1851 Canadian census, appears in Grenville County as “Catherine Bell.”10 That entry is almost certainly the source of the “Bell” surname found in many online trees: it is a later married name, taken on a remarriage in Canada, not Catherine’s maiden name. Her maiden name remains Butler.

Sarah’s age and surname. Sarah’s surname is spelled variously Bolton, Boulton, and Boltan across the records. The 1851 census gives her age as 21, implying a birth about 1830 and a marriage at roughly seventeen in 1847; later memorial evidence gives a younger age, but the earlier census-based date better fits the apparent timing of her marriage and first children. The approximately 1830 date is preferred here, with the discrepancy noted.

Sources

Evidence Timeline

  1. Best-supported birth date

    The 1824 lease, 1851 census, 1901 census, and 1902 death record point most strongly to 1819.

  2. Named as a life in the Garrynew lease

    Joseph, age five, was one of three lives named in his father's lease from Henry White of Clonganny.

  3. Garrynew voter and valuation context

    Voter lists and the 1845 valuation point cautiously to Joseph Sr.'s death between late 1841 and 1845.

  4. Canada West household

    Joseph was teaching school in Elizabethtown with Sarah and their young children.

  5. Augusta Township schoolteacher

    Education reports place him teaching at S.S. No. 20 Augusta.

  6. Ontario farming transition

    Records place Joseph in Augusta Township and later on Wicklow Township land in Hastings County.

  7. Death in Hastings County

    Joseph Henry Davis died of diabetes, aged eighty-two.

Family Group Sheet

Spouse / family connection
Sarah Bolton, married about 1847
Children and direct-line notes
  • George Davis
  • Joseph Henry Davis
  • Robert Davis
  • Deborah Ann Davis
  • Sarah Jane Davis Boyle
  • Agnes Davis
  • Eliza Margaret Davis McLean
  • William John Davis

Places in Joseph Henry Davis's Life

These markers are curated historical place references. Some are townland or township centrepoints rather than exact farm or household locations.

Documentary Base

Sources

Footnotes

  1. Caption written under a photograph of Joseph Davis by an unknown hand, received in correspondence, 1988. ↩

  2. “Canada Census, 1901,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KHLS-JWJ : accessed 23 February 2021), Joseph Davis in the household of Robert Davis, Hastings (North), Ontario; citing p. 7, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa. ↩

  3. National Library of Ireland, “White Family of Peppard’s Castle (Annesley leases) Papers, 1693–1933,” MS 29,612/12, Manuscript Collection List No. 171 (MSS 29,609–29,633); finding aid at https://www.nli.ie/sites/default/files/2022-12/171_white-papers.pdf. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  4. Wexford Conservative, 9 October 1841, Registry of Voters, no. 123 “Davis, Joseph, Garrynew” and no. 124 “Davis, Joseph, Garrynew”; British Newspaper Archive (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/). ↩ ↩2

  5. Wexford Conservative, 26 March 1841, Registry of Voters, no. 103 “Davis, Joseph, Garrynew”; British Newspaper Archive. ↩

  6. Wexford Conservative, 2 February 1842, Registry of Voters, “Davis, Joseph, Garrynew”; British Newspaper Archive (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000842/18420202/003/0001). Verify issue date and item details before final publication. The source file previously labelled this item as 2 February 1846, but the embedded URL appears to identify the 2 February 1842 issue. ↩ ↩2

  7. “Catherine Davis, 1845,” Ireland, Valuation Records, 1824–1856, database with images, Ancestry (accessed 29 June 2023); citing Valuation Office Records, Barony of Ballaghkeen, p. 8, microfilm of original records at the National Archives, Dublin. ↩

  8. 1851 Census of Canada East, Canada West, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Ancestry; Elizabethtown, Leeds County, Canada West (Ontario), Schedule A, Roll C_11733, p. 155, line 36. ↩

  9. “Dorothy Davis,” 1851 Census of Canada East, Canada West, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Ancestry; Leeds, Canada West (Ontario), Schedule A, Roll C-11733, p. 184, line 42; citing Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa. ↩

  10. “Catherine Bell,” 1851 Census of Canada East, Canada West, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Ancestry; Grenville, Canada West (Ontario), Schedule A, Roll C-11724, p. 117, line 34; citing Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa. ↩ ↩2

  11. R. Tapscott, personal communication, 1978; information on Joseph Davis extracted from the statistical reports of the Local Superintendents of Education (1850–1970), Government Records Section, Ontario. ↩

  12. 1871 Census of Canada, Ancestry; Wicklow, Hastings North, Ontario, Roll C-9995, p. 12, family no. 49. ↩

  13. “Ontario Land Registry,” ServiceOntario, Book 425, Hastings (21), Wicklow, Concessions 3–8, Lot 12, Third Concession, Crown to Joseph Davis, 18 November 1876; OnLand (https://www.onland.ca/ui/21/books/75314/viewer/159515306?page=39). ↩

  14. “Ontario Land Registry,” ServiceOntario, Book 425, Hastings (21), Wicklow, Concessions 3–8, Lot 13, Third Concession, Crown to Joseph Davis, 18 November 1876; OnLand (https://www.onland.ca/ui/21/books/75314/viewer/159515306?page=41). ↩

  15. 1881 Census of Canada, Ancestry; Wicklow and McClure, Hastings North, Ontario, Roll C_13239, p. 17, family no. 74. ↩

  16. Find a Grave, memorial page for Sarah Boltan Davis (1834–1886), memorial ID 179744611, Emmanuel United Church Cemetery, Maynooth, Hastings County, Ontario (accessed 4 July 2023). ↩

  17. Ontario, Canada, Deaths and Deaths Overseas, 1869–1948, Ancestry; Archives of Ontario, Registrations of Deaths (MS 935), Collection MS935, Reel 103, year 1901. ↩

  18. 1901 Census of Canada, Ancestry; Bangor, McClure and Wicklow, Hastings (North), Ontario, p. 7, family no. 51 (Joseph Davis in the household of Robert Davis). ↩

  19. “Joseph Davis,” Ontario, Canada, Deaths and Deaths Overseas, 1869–1948, Ancestry (accessed 4 July 2023); Archives of Ontario, Registrations of Deaths (MS 935), Collection MS935, Reel 106, year 1902. ↩