Andrew Jackson Davis, a progressive farmer and stock raiser and the second son of William and Elizabeth Davis. He was born in Wapello County, Iowa. He spent his early life on the farm, received his education in the public schools and remained with his parents until age 27. He then moved to a farm of 240 acres in section 20, township 50, Arrow Rock Township, given to him by his father William. His farm was one of the most productive and valuable farms in the County and had a large house and two barns. He had 7 children.
It was written," Andrew Jackson Davis has met with encouraging success in his vocation being in independent circumstances with a sufficiency of this world's goods in his possession to insure his future against the worry and anxiety which falls to the lot of the careless and improvident. He believes in progress in all the term implies, cultivates the soil with the most improved methods and having made agriculture the subject of close and critical study, never fails to realize abundant returns from the time and labor expended on his farm. He is held in high esteem by his neighbors and is proud of the fact that his antecedents were among the old and honored families of Virginia and that his wife's family is connected with the best people of central Missouri. He is a Democrat in politics, but not a partisan, takes an active interest in whatever tends to the material progress and moral advancement of the community and enjoys, to a marked degree, the confidence of his fellow citizens of the county of Saline." (Past and Present of Saline County, Missouri, by the Honorable William B. Napton)
Andrew Davis along with his two brothers, Duane and Guilford, visited a sick friend in 1861, who had Spinal Meningitis or Diphtheria and they all contracted the disease. Only Andrew survived.
Submitted: Kevin Pickard