213 W. Main
December 1877
The Flag Store
Kentucky Whisky Depot
D.W.C. Davis Hardware
D. W. C. Davis
DeWitt W. C. Davis (1850–1881) was born in Michigan
and in
the Civil War served as a private in the 7th Regiment, Michigan
Infantry. He
married Ella R. Grubbs (1852–1932) and was in Denison, Texas, shortly after the
town's founding. The Denison Daily News
noted in the March 16, 1873 issue that wagons were loading freight at
Davis' Hardware on Main street and that he was receiving orders from
all parts of the country.
The Denison Daily News
April 16, 1873
"Order
the following goods from D.W.C. Davis, wholesale and retail dealer in
hardware : Stove, wagons, Garden city clipper plows, iron & wood
pumps, corn planters, thimble skeins, buggy springs, iron and steel,
ox yokes and bows, wheat, drills, sweepstake and other thrashers,
sulkey hay rakes, revolving hay rakes, scotch harrows, cider mills,
sorghum mills, horse and mule shoes. Cotton and hides wanted!
The 1876 Denison City Directory listed him: "Davis, DeWitt C., hardware,
stoves, tinware and
agricultural implements, 113 north side of Main between Houston and
Austin
Avenues; residence north side of Gandy Street between Burnet
and Rusk
Avenues."
Living in the same house
with DeWitt and Ella
was her father, Major Robert Marshall Grubbs. In 1876, the City
Directory had
him: "Grubbs, Robert M., asst postmaster, residence north side of Gandy
between Rusk and Burnet Avenues." His wife was Elizabeth F. G.
"Eliza" Reid Grubbs (1829–1921). They had married on December 7,
1848, in Henry County, Indiana.
The Denison
Daily Herald for January 1, 1879, carried this short profile
of the major:
"Major R. M. Grubbs served two years as mayor of Denison. He was born
in
Kentucky in 1831 and received a common school education before settling
in
Indiana, a state he represented in the Federal army. He came to Denison
in 1873
in charge of D. W. C. Davis hardware store. That year he was appointed
Postmaster, an office he filled to the satisfaction of the public for
one year
before being elected mayor in 1877." Grubbs served as a major in the
84th
Indiana Volunteer Infantry.
By 1880, the household had moved to nearby Sherman,
Texas,
living on North Travis Street. On June 2, the Census taker listed
DeWitt, 30,
as a hardware merchant. Also present were wife Ella, 26; two young
daughters
(Pauline and Blanche); Major Grubbs, 52, a "hardware clerk"; his wife
Eliza, 52; and a mulatto female cook, Ellen Roy, 31.
DeWitt passed away on
February 18, 1881, in
Sherman, and was buried at West Hill Cemetery there. He left behind an
infant
son, DeWitt Clinton Davis Jr., born September 26, 1880.
Southwestern Reporter,
vol. 50 (1899), pages 1087ff.
Ella's mother Eliza
died in Denver, Colorado, in 1921. After
living in Kansas and Chautauqua, New York, Ella in 1930 was living near
her
daughter and son-in-law (Pauline and Stanley Ferguson) in Alhambra, Los
Angeles
County, California. She died there on March 29, 1932.
Denison Daily News
Vol II, No. 36
Denison, Texas, Sunday Morning, April
5, 1874
The
Great Liquor House
---
Eppstein
Bros., at the Kentucky Whiskey Depot, keep a large stock of their
celebrated whisky's always on hand for the trade. Their Paris Bourbon
is very choice. Prices to suit the times. Store on Main street.
E.E. Davis Livery Stable
& Wagon Yard
