Maj. John Davidson

1735 - 1832  (96 years)

• Name	John Davidson  [1]
  Prefix	Maj.
  Born	15 Dec 1735	Chester County, Pennsylvania   [1]
  Gender	Male
  Group	Davidson Direct Descendant
  	Direct Descendant of any immigrant Davidson
  Group	Davidson DNA Family 030
  	Descendants of Robert Davidson and Isabel Ramsey of Rural Hill, North Carolina
  Group	Descendant of Revolutionary War Veteran
  	DAR or SAR Eligible Descendant of a Revolutionary War Veteran
  Group	Proven Davidson DNA Family 030
  	Proven as a descendant of DNA Family 030 by YDNA test of a direct descendant
  Group	Veteran of Revolutionary War or Patriot
  	Revolutionary War Patriot or Soldier.
  FindaGrave Memorial ID	8584073
  	https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/8584073
  1800 Census	1800	Mecklenburg County, North Carolina
  	p. 559 (279) Evan Alexander         20010 - 00100 - 0 - 0 Archibald Cathy         10010 - 20100 - 0 - (10) John Davidson, Maj.   21101 - 10111 - 0 - (10) James Connor Esq     20101 - 10010 - 0 - (25) Charles Connor          10020 - 10110 - 0 - (15) Census Analysis: Male       > 45 : John Davidson, b. 1735 Female   > 45 : Violet Wilson, b. 1742 Female 26-45 : ? Margaret Davidson, b. 1776 Female 16-26 : Elizabeth Lee Davidson, b. 1782 Male     16-26 : John McKnitt "Jackey" Davidson, b. 1779 Male     10-16 : Benjamin Wilson Davidson, b. 1787 Male       < 10 : ? Male       < 10 : ? Female   < 10 : ?
  Died	10 Jan 1832	Mecklenburg County, North Carolina   [1]
  Buried	Aft 10 Jan 1832	Rural Hill Cemetery, Huntersville, Mecklenburg County, NC
  Person ID	I395	DNA Family 1 Genealogies
  Last Modified	15 Apr 2021

  
  

  Father	Robert Davidson,   b. Abt 1710, Scotland ,   d. Abt 1737, Chestnut Level, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania  (Age ~ 27 years)
  Mother	Isabella Ramsey,   b. Pennsylvania ,   d. Aft 1760, Rowan County, North Carolina
  Married	Abt 1730	Chestnut Level, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
  Alt. Marriage	Abt 1730	Elkton, Cecil County, Maryland
  Family ID	F246	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Violet Winslow Wilson,   b. 13 Aug 1742, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina ,   d. 3 Dec 1818, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina  (Age 76 years)
  Married	2 Jun 1761	Catawba River, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina
  Children	1. Rebecca Davidson,   b. 20 Mar 1762, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina ,   d. 24 Nov 1824, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina  (Age 62 years)   2. Isabella Davidson,   b. 21 Sep 1764, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina ,   d. 15 Jan 1808  (Age 43 years)   3. Mary "Polly" Davidson,   b. 13 Dec 1766, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina ,   d. 12 Mar 1862, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina  (Age 95 years)   4. Robert "Robin" Davidson,   b. 7 Apr 1769, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina ,   d. 14 Jun 1853  (Age 84 years)   5. Violet Davidson,   b. 28 Aug 1771, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina ,   d. 26 Oct 1821  (Age 50 years)   6. Sarah Davidson,   b. 13 Jun 1774, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina ,   d. 3 Feb 1842, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina  (Age 67 years)   7. Margaret Davidson,   b. 8 Feb 1776, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina ,   d. 30 Jul 1830, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina  (Age 54 years)   8. John McKnitt "Jackey" Davidson,   b. 12 Nov 1779, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina ,   d. 26 Apr 1870  (Age 90 years)   9. Elizabeth Lee "Betsy" Davidson,   b. 15 Sep 1782, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina ,   d. 27 Apr 1845  (Age 62 years)   10. Benjamin Wilson Davidson,   b. 20 May 1787, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina ,   d. 25 Sep 1829  (Age 42 years)
  Last Modified	4 Apr 2009
  Family ID	F247	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Event Map

  Born - 15 Dec 1735 - Chester County, Pennsylvania Married - 2 Jun 1761 - Catawba River, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina 1800 Census - 1800 - Mecklenburg County, North Carolina Died - 10 Jan 1832 - Mecklenburg County, North Carolina Buried - Aft 10 Jan 1832 - Rural Hill Cemetery, Huntersville, Mecklenburg County, NC  = Link to Google Earth

  
  

• Badges

  Rural Hill Davidsons - DNA Family 030

  
  

• Notes

  John Davidson, known as Major John Davidson of "Rural Hill", Mecklenburg County, NC,  was born in Pennsylvania.  His mother remarried a Henry Henry/Hendry, probably in Pennsylvania. He was brought up and educated by his step-father.  He became a skilled blacksmith. The family moved to the territory of Anson County (now Rowan County), NC, near the present Salisbury, NC, near the Yadkin River. Some researchers have suggested that she moved to North Carolina about 1740 as a widow and married there; however, that area did not open to settling until closer to 1750. It is more likely that she married in Pennsylvania and joined a group moving to North Carolina later. About 1760, he and his sister Mary left the parental home and went to Rocky River in the Hopewell section of Mecklenburg County, NC.  He continued to live in this region for the remainder of his life. There he met and married Violet Wilson, a daughter of Samuel Wilson, a wealthy planter of Hopewell Congregation, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.  (Another daughter of Samuel Wilson (Mary) married Ezekiel Polk.  They were the grandparents of James K. Polk, eleventh President of the United States in the year 1844.)  Samuel Wilson came to North Carolina in 1740. John Davidson was a delegate to the Provincial Legislature from Mecklensburg County in 1773.  He held the positions of Major of Militia and Justice of the Peace, both under Provincial and State Government.  He was a delegate to the convention, May 20 1775, at Charlotte, and as such was a signer of  the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, promulgated on that occasion. He was a Major of Colonel Polk's regiment in the campaign against the Scovillite Tories in 1775; also, in that of Colonel Alexander in General Rutherford's campaign against the Cherokee Indians in 1776. With his sons-in-law, Alexander Brevard and Joseph Lincoln, he was a pioneer in the manufacture of iron in Lincoln County, NC. He died in 1832 in his 97th year and is buried with many of his descendants in the family cemetery on the farm where he first located. He owned 26 slaves. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=- from: http://www.cmhpf.org/S&RR/RuralHill.html Historical Overview Dr. William H. Huffman January, 1987 Rural Hill was the name given to the plantation house located on a promontory near the Catawba River in the northwest part of Mecklenburg County that was built by Major John Davidson (1735-1837) in 1788. The original mansion burned in 1886 (partial ruins remain), and the present house is an expansion and remodeling of the original kitchen. Major Davidson was born on December 15, 1735 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania to Robert and Isabella Ramsey Davidson, who, sometime earlier, had emigrated to the United States from Scotland. Family tradition has it that Robert Davidson died young, and that Isabella migrated to Rowan County with son John and daughter Mary in the mid 1700s, where she married Henry Hendry, a tutor to the children. John Davidson became a blacksmith and came to Mecklenburg County about 1760, where he located in the Hopewell Church section. On June 2, 1761, he and nineteen-year-old Violet Wilson (1742-1818), the second daughter of Catawba River plantation owner Samuel Wilson, were married. (Eldest daughter Mary Wilson became the grandmother of President James K. Polk.) 1 The newlyweds got their start through a gift of land split off from Samuel Wilson's plantation holdings. Their first house was a two room log cabin, which over time grew to have eight, and became known as Rural Retreat. It was located about a hundred yards north of the later mansion house, but was lost in a fire in 1898. With the other pioneer families of the section, the Davidsons prospered before the Revolutionary War through their own industry and good fortune to be pioneers in an area rich in natural resources. Ten of their children survived to adulthood, as did sixty-one grandchildren.2 In addition to being a hard-working planter, John Davidson began to take an active part in public life. With most other able men of the area, he served in the county militia, and in January 1773, became one of Mecklenburg's two delegates (with Martin Phifer) to the colonial N. C. Assembly in New Bern, a post he held for about a year. In the turbulent times just prior to the Revolutionary War, Davidson was elected a member of the Committee of Safety for Mecklenburg, and meetings were held in Charlotte to discuss grievances and methods of action. One such meeting was called for May 19, 1775, by Col. Thomas Polk, and two men from each captain's company in the colonial militia were selected to attend; John Davidson and John McKnitt Alexander were the Hopewell delegates. Tradition has it that the following day, May 20th, the delegates signed the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, which was carried to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia.3 In September, 1775, a State Militia was organized by the Provincial Congress of N. C., and John Davidson received a commission as second major of the Mecklenburg troops under Col. Thomas Polk; the following April, 1776, Davidson was made a First Major under Col. Adam Alexander. After three field campaigns, Davidson became a staff officer of the Salisbury Brigade, and was present at Cornwallis' defeat of the American forces at Camden, S.C., in 1780. When Cornwallis occupied Charlotte shortly afterward, foragers from his army were apparently headed toward the provisions at Davidson's plantation when they ran into a "hornet's nest" of sniper fire at McIntyre's farm just seven miles from the Davidson place. 4 In December, 1780, General Greene replaced General Gates as commander of the southern patriot forces, and ordered General William Lee Davidson, a distant relative of John, to slow Cornwallis' expected crossing into North Carolina, so that the main force could retreat to the north. General Davidson decided to harry Cornwallis when he attempted to cross the Catawba at Cowan's Ford, and according to tradition, Major John Davidson provided transportation for his troops, an encampment site on the plantation, and the loan of a horse for the General on the day of the battle. Chalmers Davidson relates this story of the incident: Tales are told that the General mounted his horse under a low bowed tree on leaving and that the slaves predicted dire results from the ill omen. The premonition of the negroes, if the tale is true, proved correct, for General Davidson was killed by the first British fire from the Catawba and his horse returned riderless to the stables of Major John.5 The General was buried secretly at night in the Hopewell Church graveyard. After the war was over, John Davidson returned to the life of a prospering country squire. Over a period of years he acquired about five thousand acres of land, and in 1788, he decided to build a fine brick mansion atop a rise just south of his eight-room log house. The two-story, Georgian-style house was constructed of brick made nearby, and was the grandest of the Catawba River plantation houses and the center of the Davidson and extended families for many years. The floor plan of the house before the Civil War has been described thusly: The basement contained the dining room on the east (entire length), a hall, and a kitchen, a pantry and a store-room on the west. The last was the only room in the house without a fireplace. The first floor was divided by a central hall about ten feet wide. To the west was the great parlor with a smaller room at the north which was separated by a folding partition. When the partition was folded to the walls the west side of the first floor was thrown into one large apartment. To the east of the central hall were two bed chambers. The second floor was divided by a similar hall with two bed rooms on either side, The rooms to the west of the upstairs hall could be thrown together by raising a hanging partition to the ceilings. Ceilings on both main floors were about ten feet high. The garret was one great room with windows only in the gable ends.6 The plantation out-buildings included a well house and ash house (there lye for soap was made) of brick, a summer kitchen (now part of the present residence), a carriage house and a smoke house (where hens were smoked and taken to Charleston to exchange for other goods), and barns, stables, pens and slave cabins. Still surviving are the well house, ash house, smoke house, outer kitchen (incorporated into a residence), an old crib and granary. A one-room schoolhouse that probably dates from the 1910s is located just to the southwest of the mansion site.7 The lanes leading to the house (Meadow Lane, to the southeast; Robin's Lane, to the northwest; and the mill lane, directly south; the mill itself in now under water) were lined with cedar. The grounds themselves were liberally planted with a mixture of common and rare shrubs, trees, and flowers. All in all, it must have presented a picture of an idyllic country mansion, and been one of the finest showplaces along with the other two brick mansions in the section, the Cedar Grove or Torrance House on Gilead Road, and the Williamson-Patterson Walnut Grove House on Patterson-Potts Road.8 By 1790, Major Davidson was one of the major plantation owners of the county: he owned twenty-six slaves, a number that was only exceeded on the plantations of Thomas Polk and John Springs. It is said that he personally instructed all of his slaves in their work by the skill of his own manual labor, and in the days before the widespread raising of cotton, the slaves represented a considerable estate. Produce from the farm was marketed in Charleston and Philadelphia.9 But the plantation was not Davidson's only interest. After experimenting with the iron ore found in a fifteen-mile stretch in Lincoln and Catawba counties, he is said to have developed a broad-axe from the local ore. He then became a business associate of Peter Forney, who owned major interests in the ore beds, and the partners founded the Vesuvius furnace and Mt. Tirzah forge in Lincoln County. By 1791, Davidson and two of his sons-in-law, Alexander Brevard and Joseph Graham, bought out Forney and operated the business at a considerable profit. In 1804, Davidson sold his interests in the business to the sons-in-law.10 In the decade between 1790 and 1800, the number of Davidson's slaves dropped from twenty-six to nineteen, but that was soon to change because of the invention of the cotton gin in 1793. In 1810, the number had risen to thirty, and he had given the same number to his sons Robin (who lived one mile west at Holly Bend and in time became the largest plantation owner in the county with over 100 slaves) and Jackey.11 In 1823, when he was in his eighty-eighth year, Davidson decided that it was tine to retire (his wife Violet Wilson Davidson had died in 1818 at the age of seventy-six), and so he appointed one of his sons in-law, William Lee Davidson (the son of the Revolutionary War general) as his trustee to dispose of all his personal and real property, which was allocated according to the terms of his will. Major Davidson spent the remainder of his days (he lived to be ninety-seven) living with William Lee and Betsy Davidson at their plantation Beaver Dam, which is two and a half wiles east of Davidson College. 12 He was buried in the Rural Hill Burying Ground, located just south of the plantation house on the present Neck Road, where he was preceded by his wife and followed by many other members of the Davidson family. A descendant of Major Davidson's, E. L. Baxter Davidson (1858-1943), in 1921-1922 enclosed about an acre of the burial ground with a rock wall, landscaped the interior under the supervision of Lee Collier, a landscape gardener, and made other improvements, all at a cost of $20,000. Baxter Davidson also had plans drawn up for the restoration of Rural Hill, but died before they could be carried out.13 According to the terms of Major Davidson's will, his mansion house tract, which is roughly about the size of the combined holdings of the Davidson family parcels today, went to his son John [Jackie] (1779-1870) and his wife, Sarah Harper Brevard Davidson (1780-1861),14 and in the 1840s it had passed to grandson Adam Brevard (1808-1896) and his wife, Mary Laura Springs Davidson (1813-1872).15 One of Brevard Davidson's sons, Robert, was captured and interned by Union forces during the Civil War, and after the war made his way back to Rural Hill only to die of the neglect suffered during confinement.16 The other son, Baxter Davidson, made the improvements to the Rural Hill Burying Ground mentioned above, and was a major benefactor of Davidson College.17 In 1886, while still under the ownership of A. Brevard Davidson but occupied by a great-grandson of Major Davidson, John Springs Davidson, the mansion house burned while the family was away at a fair in Charlotte.18 In January, 1894, Brevard Davidson conveyed the Rural Hill property to grandson Joseph Graham Davidson (1868-1949),19 who in 1910, agreed to a division of the land into five lots of 62-1/2 acres each, which reserved one for himself and one each for his four brothers and sisters.20 In 1953, to settle the estate of J. G. Davidson, the Rural Hill land was once again divided, which resulted in the present configuration of parcels owned by descendants of Major John Davidson. 21 The remains and setting of Rural Hill are a vitally important part of of the rapidly-disappearing pioneer heritage of Mecklenburg County and ust be preserved if that heritage is not to be lost to future generations. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------ Notes 1 Chalmers Gaston Davidson, Major John Davidson of Rural Hill ( Charlotte : Lassiter Press, 1943), pp. 1-7. 2 Ibid., 72-79. 3 Ibid., 11-29. 4 Ibid., 31-36. 5 Ibid., 38. 6 Ibid., 45. 7 Ibid., 45-46; interview with Elizabeth Hampton Davidson, 15 Jan. 1987. 8 Chalmers Gaston Davidson, The Plantation World Around Davidson (Davidson: Briarpatch Press, 1982), pp. 65-6, 70-71. 9 Chalmers Gaston Davidson, Major John Davidson of Rural Hill ( Charlotte : Lassiter Press, 1943), pp. 53-4. 10 Ibid., 55-57. 11 Ibid., 57-58. 12 Ibid., 67-69. 13 Ibid., 50-51. 14 Ibid., 72-79; Will Book G. p. 74. 15 Ibid., 43. 16 Chalmers Gaston Davidson, The Plantation World Around Davidson (Davidson: Briarpatch Press, 1982), pp. 67. 17 Ibid. 18 Chalmers Gaston Davidson, Major John Davidson of Rural Hill ( Charlotte : Lassiter Press, 1943), pp. 46-8. 19 Deed Book 263, p. 28. 20 Ibid. 21 Deed Book 1631, p. 569.

  
  

• Sources

  [S4] Alexander-Davidson Bible.