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JAMES DAVIS.
His Autobiography.
I was born in Wales, October 31, 1827, and emigrated to the United States in 1841. Left home about last of July
of that year. Left Swansea, Wales, on steamboat for Liverpool, England, on the 5th clay of August. I left Liverpool
on a sailing boat for New York and arrived at New York on the 22d of September, 1841, being on the sea about seven
weeks. I journeyed from New York to Albany by steamboat., then to Buffalo by canal, from Buffalo to Cleveland and
thence by canal boat to Roscoe, arriving there on Sunday. Then we walked out to the Coalport coal bank and afterward
my brother Benjamin and myself went up to Holmes county to dig coal. As the sale of coal was poor, Brother Ben
came down to Coalport and I went to school in December, 1841, and during January and February, 1842, in Holmes
county. I came down to Coshocton county and worked with my brother Ben in a coal mine in the summer and went to
school in the winter. Ben and I worked in partnership in coal mining and boated coal to Newark and Columbus in
1848 on the Ohio canal, selling mostly fine coal to the penitentiary and along the canal. I was married on the
26th of May, 1853, and ray brother Ben and I worked together until he died on the 6th of March, 1855. After that
I worked on the canal bank and carried on business by myself. In 1872 I moved over to creek farm and turned my
attention to farming. I must confess I had good success all these times, but don't you forget I worked hard all
these years. I bought land near Franklin Station. I farmed very extensively and also operated in the sand business.
I made money enough to pay for all the land and build some very good houses. I am able to pay all my debt by selling
some of my land. I believe I have told all the good I have done and now ask somebody else for the bad deeds I have
done. In the fall of 1863 and spring of 1864 I built a canal boat for boating coal, the name of the boat being
Ben Butler. In the summer of 1864 I hired a substitute to serve three years or during the war, for which I paid
twelve hundred dollars. In the spring of 1865, when the Civil war ended, I worked in coal bank about three months
and then quit and took up farming.
From:
Centennial History of
Coshocton County, Ohio
By William J. Bahmer
The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co.
Chicago 1909
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