Philip H. Davis

PHILIP H. DAVIS. The paternal grandfather of Philip H. Davis, of Sutersville, was Philip Davis, a farmer of Staffordshire. England, who emigrated to the United States in 1841, settling in Trumbull county, Ohio, and afterward purchasing a farm near Sharon, Pennsylvania, adjoining the state line. On this farm he passed the remainder of his life, and for many years conducted a dairy. The christian name of his wife was Ann. The death of Mr. Davis occurred in 1865, when he was in the sixty-sixth year of his age.

John B. Davis, son of Philip and Ann Davis, was born in 1831, in Staffordshire, England, and was ten years old when the family came to the United States. He was associated with his father in the dairy business, and in 1864 moved to Hubbard, Ohio, where for four years he held the position of mine foreman. He then removed to Bethel, Pennsylvania, where he served two years as mine boss, after which he went to Coalburg, Ohio, and there worked in the mines for three years. At the end of that time he returned to the old homestead in Trumbull county, remaining some three years and then retiring from active life. After residing for a year on the state line between Mercer county, Pennsylvania, and Trumbull county, Ohio, he removed to Massillon, Ohio, and there passed the residue of his days. Politically he was a Democrat. He married Jeannette, born in 1832, in Glasgow, Scotland, daughter of Alexander and Mary Thornton, who emigrated to the United States about 1840. Mr. Thornton purchased a farm near Sharon, between that place and Sharpsburg. Six acres of this land he subsequently sold at a good price to the old Sharpsburg furnaces, and some time later sold the remainder of the farm for twenty-eight thousand dollars to Strawbridge & Trout, who desired it for speculative purposes. He then purchased for eighteen thousand dollars a farm of two hundred and four acres situated back of Sharpsburg, this land being still in the possession of his heirs. He died on this farm about 1888, aged eighty-four years. The family of Mr. and Mrs. Davis consisted of the following children: Alexander, mine superintendent at Wadsworth, Ohio; Anna, wife of Manna Joy, of Akron, Ohio; Philip H., mentioned hereafter; Mary, wife of William Wilson, of Sharon, Pennsylvania; Charles, policeman at Massillon, Ohio; Margaret, at home. The death of Mr. Davis, the father, which occurred February 13, 1904, was the result of an accident. Within three hundred yards of his home he was struck by a train of the Pittsburg & Fort Wayne Railroad. His widow resides in Massillon, Ohio.

Philip H. Davis, son of John B. and Jeannette (Thornton) Davis, was born March 22, 1858, in Trumbull county, Ohio, where he received his education in the common schools. In his eighth year he went into the mines as trapper boy under his father, who was at that time mine foreman. For twenty-three years thereafter Philip H. Davis was connected with mining. In 1880 he went to Scott Haven, and one year later to Sutersville, where in 1892 he was given a license for a hotel which he conducted until 1897, when he sold the business and removed to McKeesport. After three years' residence there he returned to Sutersville and purchased his old hotel, the Harrison House, of which he is now the successful proprietor. He is a member of McKeesport Lodge. No. 136, Benevolent Protective Order of Elks, Lodge of Heptasophs, also of McKeesport, and Sutersville Lodge, No. 405, Knights of Pythias. In politics he is a Democrat. Mr. Davis married in 1879, Mary Elizabeth Harrison, of Sharon, and six of their seven children are now living: Harry, storekeeper of the light plant of the National Tube Works, McKeesport; Frederick, employed in the machine shops of the National Tube Works; Margaret, at home; Philip, at home; Minta, at home; and Lillian, at home.

Source: History of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, Volume II, by John N. Boucher. New York, The Lewis Publishing Company, 1906, Page 291-2.
Transcribed by Carol C. Eddleman for the Westmoreland County History Project.
Contributed for use by the Westmoreland County Genealogy Project (http://www.pa-roots.com/westmoreland/)

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