William Davis & Farsina Brewster

William Davis spent most of his relatively short life on the Cumberland Plateau in east Tennessee’s Morgan County.  He was originally from Kentucky, born in September 1870 to Ransom Davis and Sarah A.E. Pitman in eastern Muhlenberg County in what was known as the Hunt settlement, founded by Ransom’s great-grandparents and their children around 1810.  (Please see William’s 7-generation ancestor chart here.) (1, 2, 3)

In 1875, when William was four years old, Ransom and Sarah left Kentucky to move permanently to Morgan County, where Sarah had been born and where she still had an extended family network. The Davises settled on 83 acres purchased from Sarah’s brother, Ephraim Pitman; their property was on Bone Camp Creek, which straddles the 5th and 6th Civil District lines in the northern part of the county.  (4, 5)

Northern Morgan County, TN, showing Davis and Brewster residences about 1881

On 5 October 1888, William married Farsina Brewster in Morgan County. Farsina was the daughter of John Brewster and Rebecca Farr; born in September 1867 in Morgan County, she was four years older than William. (Please see Farsina’s 5-generation ancestor chart here.) (6, 7, 8, 9)

It’s unclear how the two met, though there are several possibilities.  Farsina’s father, John Brewster, was a circuit minister in northern Morgan County and also frequently preached at a church on the outskirts of Rugby; Farsina and William could have met during a local revival or camp meeting that he led.  The town of Rugby itself is another a possibility.  Founded in 1880 as a utopian settlement by English novelist Thomas Hughes, Rugby attracted local residents for miles around to its small shops, school, library, and other village amenities.  Finally, timber logging was a significant source of income for many in the northern part of the county, including William’s extended Pitman family; it’s possible that William may have met members of Farsina’s extended family at the local sawmill, where several of them worked off and on over the years. (10, 11, 12)

From the few records he left behind, William appears to have lived on or near the family farm until the late 1890s, both before and after his father died in 1890.  William appears in Morgan County tax lists beginning in 1891, the year he turned 21, in Civil District 6 with no land.  (His mother, Sarah, is also in CD 6, where she continued to pay tax on the 83 acres her husband had purchased in 1875.)   In 1896, William and Farsina sold his one-third interest in his late father’s land. Two years later, William’s mother Sarah apparently had died, because his brother Balaam and brother-in-law James Alexander McKinney were taxed for 27.5 acres (or one-third) each. (13, 14)

By 1900, William and Farsina were living with their three daughters next to Farsina’s widowed father John Brewster in the tiny community of Brewstertown, just west of Rugby.  Probably about 1902, William died, possibly from a fever or other illness.  In an interview years later, Farsina’s nephew recounted that the dying William had said that three yellow birds were sitting on the foot of his bed with another perched on his breast, but that Farsina never saw the birds, suggesting he may have been in a state of delirium. (1, 10)

In 1902 or 1903, Farsina apparently married her second husband, Hugh Berry, although no marriage record has been located.  Their daughter, Florence May, was born in December of that year, and the 1910 census enumeration lists the couple as having been married for seven years, pointing to a marriage early in 1903. (15, 16)

Born in neighboring Fentress County, Hugh was the son of James Henry Berry and Sarah Syfer.  Hugh was seven years younger than Farsina and had been married twice before, apparently widowed both times.  In the 1900 census, he was living as a boarder in the household of Farsina’s brother Jasper Brewster; this is undoubtedly how they met. (17)

At some point (we’re still researching when), Farsina and Hugh moved some 40 miles north to Yamacraw in (then) Whitley County, Kentucky, where Farsina’s daughter, Becky, married John Bartin Bryant in 1908. But by 1910, the family had returned to Brewstertown. (18, 15)

Farsina and Hugh remained near Farsina’s family from then on. Hugh died in June 1921 in Brewstertown, and Farsina died seven months later in Knoxville, leaving their daughter May an orphan at the age of 18. (19, 20)

Hugh appears to have had significant health issues for most of his life.  In 1896, he deeded 40 acres of land in Fentress County to his uncle, Jeremiah Berry, on the condition that Jeremiah “take in the said Hugh Berry as one of his own family and necessarily take care of him during his natural life;” one year later, Jeremiah transferred that obligation to Hugh’s younger brother, James H. Berry, in a second deed.  

Hugh’s official cause of death was Bright’s disease, a historical term for kidney disease and now more commonly called acute or chronic nephritis.  It’s possible that he was already feeling the effects of this ailment, even in his twenties. (21)

However, by the time Hugh appeared before the Morgan County draft board in 1918, his health had deteriorated further.  He was physically disqualified from military service because he was “practically unable to do any work” due to locomotor ataxia, a 19th-century term for syphilis of the spinal cord. (22, 23)

This second diagnosis is supported by Farsina’s own illness and death.  In an oral family history of the extended Brewster family, Farsina’s brother James told his interviewer that “Fairzina lived to be about 50 and went insane and died.”  Sometime after the 1920 census, Farsina was committed to the Eastern State Psychiatric Hospital in Knoxville, where she died in 1922 from general paresis, another form of neurosyphilis that leads to psychiatric disorders and eventually death if left untreated (and there were few treatments at that time).  (24, 25)

Neurosyphilis has a long incubation period and may not begin to show symptoms until up to 20 years after infection, suggesting that Hugh had been infected first and then passed the disease on to Farsina when they married.  

The only photo we have of Hugh and Farsina was taken probably around 1920. It shows Hugh hunched over, arms wrapped around his torso, eyes wincing against the daylight, and a cane tucked under his right arm (difficulty walking was a key symptom of neurosyphilis).  It’s sad to think of illnesses that can easily be treated with modern medicine, such as antibiotics, but that were incurable and untreatable just one hundred years ago.

Hugh, May, and Farsina Berry, about 1920
© 2022 Donna Rowland Gough

***** *****

William Davis (b. Sep 1870, Muhlenberg Co., KY – d. ca. 1902, Morgan Co., TN)
m1. 5 Oct 1888, Morgan Co., TN
Farsina Brewster (b. Sep 1867, Morgan Co., TN – d. 21 Jan 1922, Bearden, Knox Co., TN)
Children:
i.   Rebecca Lenore Davis (b. 24 Sep 1893, Morgan Co., TN – d. 18 Sep 1930, Harlan Co., KY); m. John Barton Bryant (1, 18, 26)
ii.  Sarah Jane Davis (b. 1 May 1895, Morgan Co., TN – d. 21 Aug 1987, Harriman, Roane Co., TN); m. Frank Marion Cochran (1, 27, 28, 29)
iii. Minnie Ellen Davis (b. 7 Mar 1898, Morgan Co., TN – d. 6 May 1980, Muncie, Delaware Co., IN); m. Charles Taylor (1, 30)

Farsina Brewster m2. ca. 1903, Fentress or Morgan Co., TN 
Hugh Lawson Berry (b. 11 Feb 1873, Fentress Co., TN – d. 29 Jun 1921, Morgan Co., TN)
Children:
i. Florence May Berry (b. 7 Dec 1903, Morgan Co., TN – d. 2 Nov 1985, Anderson Co., TN); m. Jimmie Rogers

Sources:

  1. 1900 U.S. census, Morgan County TN, population schedule, Civil District 12, Enumeration District #109, sheets 11B and 12A, dwelling #206, family #206, William Davis, Ancestry online.
  2. 1870 U.S. census, Muhlenberg County KY, population schedule, Court House District #3, Greenville P.O., page 12 (sheet 483-A, stamped), dwelling #442, family #445, Ransom Davis, FHL 3545989, image 332 of 494.
  3. 1880 U.S. census, Morgan County TN, population schedule, 6th Civil District, page 6, enumeration district #133, dwelling #50, family #50, Ransom Davis, Ancestry online.
  4. Morgan County TN, Deed Records,, Deed Book V (1882-1883), pp 167-169, Ephraim & Mary Pitman to Ransom Davis, deed, 20 Aug 1875, County Court Clerk, WArtburg, FHL #978855, item 2 (image 249ff).
  5. Ransom Davis’s land purchase was identified as being in Civil District 5, while the 1880 census enumeration, multiple tax lists, and his court reports as a justice of the peace all identify him as living in Civil District 6. The meanders of Bone Camp Creek are on the dividing line between the two districts.
  6. Morgan County TN, Deeds Vol. S (1877-1880), pp 514-516, James S. Duncan dec’d to John Brewster, deed, 15 Dec 1860, County Court Clerk, Wartburg, FHL #978854, item 1.
  7. 1870 U.S. census, Morgan County TN, population schedule, Civil District #5, Pine Top P.O., page 5, dwelling #33, family #33, John Brewster, Ancestry online.
  8. 1880 U.S. census, Morgan County TN, population schedule, Civil District 5, enumeration district #133, page 9, dwelling #74, family #74, John Bruster, Ancestry online.
  9. Morgan County TN, Marriage Records, 1862-1910 (1888), 5 Oct 1888, William Davis & Fairzinia Brewster, FHL #978841, item 2 (image 112 of 727).
  10. Interview by Wilma Crabtree Gibson of Andy Marion Brewster, 1972, transcription provided in 1997 to Donna Rowland Gough.
  11. Pyszka, Kimberly. “The Massengale Family and Other Mountain Folk of Rugby, Morgan County, Tennessee.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly 70, no. 1 (2011): pp 14, 17, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42628732, accessed 23 Feb 2022.
  12. Morgan County, Tennessee, Chancery Court Minutes, Vol. F (1893-1897), Reuben W. Pittman et al vs. Samuel Pittman et al, FHL #978834, item 1, pp 33-34 (image 39 of 793), accessed 27 Feb 2022.
  13. Morgan County, Tennessee, Duplicate Tax Lists, 1891, William Davis entry, Civil District 6 (unpaginated), microfilm copy.
  14. Morgan County, Tennessee, Deeds, Vol H-2 (1895-1897), pp 428-429 , William Davis & Parizina Davis to W.A. Whitney, deed, 17 Aug 1896, County Court Clerk, Wartburg, FHL #978861, item 2, (image 569). Also, Morgan County, Tennessee, Duplicate Tax Lists, 1897, J.A. McKinney and Balaam Davis entries, Civil District 6 (unpaginated), microfilm copy. See Lincoln Cochran’s profile for more information on J.A. McKinney.
  15. 1910 U.S. census, Morgan County TN, population schedule, Civil District 12, enumeration district #55, sheet 2-B, dwelling #32, family #34, Hugh Berry, Ancestry online.
  16. Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014, Ancestry online, accessed 5 Feb 2022, May Rogers, Nov 1985, Clinton, Anderson County, TN, SS #411-18-8536.
  17. 1900 U.S. census, Morgan County TN, population schedule, Civil District 12, enumeration district (ED) 55, sheet 11-A, dwelling #192, family #192, Jasper Bewster, Ancestry online.
  18. Whitley County, Kentucky, Marriage Records,  (1905-1908), Becky Davis and Bartin Bryant entry, County Court Clerk, Stearns, FHL #5773078 (images 390-392 of 570).
  19. Tennessee, State Board of Health, death certificate, file #124 (1921), Hugh Berry, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Nashville.
  20. Tennessee, State Board of Health, death certificate, file #23 (1922), Farzina Barry, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Nashville.
  21. Fentress County, TN, Deed Records, Deed Book V (1895-1898), p 487, Hugh Berry to Jeremiah Berry, County Court Clerk, Jamestown, FHL #378390, item 2 (image 616); Deed Book X (1900-1901), pp 220-221, Jeremiah Berry and Nancy C. Berry to James D. [sic] Berry, County Court Clerk, Jamestown, FHL #978391, item 2 (image 392).
  22. World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918 (1918), online images, accessed 14 Feb 2022, Hugh Lawson Berry, serial #1313, order #A-263, Morgan County TN Draft Board, Ancestry online.
  23. “Locomotor ataxia,” ScienceDirect, https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/locomotor-ataxia, accessed 8 Mar 2022.
  24. James Thomas Brewster interview, date uncertain, transcription by Lola Crabtree.
  25. “General paresis,” Medlineplus, https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/000748.htm, accessed 8 Mar 2022.
  26. Kentucky, State Board of Health, death certificate, file #66 (1930), Becky Bryant, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Frankfort.
  27. Tennessee, Department of Public Health, certificate of death, file #87-035535 (1987), Sarah Jane Cochran, Office of Vital Records, Nashville.
  28. Social Security Administration, Claim Application (form SSA-9638), Sarah Jane Davis Cochran, SS #408-28-2294.
  29. Scott County, Tennessee, Marriage Bonds, Vol 6 (1907-1912), Frank Cochram and Sarah Jane Davis,  (1911), County Court Clerk, Huntsville, FHL 926290 (image 339 of 921).
  30. Indiana, State Board of Health, death certificate, file #80-016389 (1980), Minnie E. Taylor.

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