"Nathaniel Bowe Davis was but three years old when his parents moved to Kentucky (from VA).  He grew up in the Bluegrass Country where he became a stock raiser, a farmer, and a trader.  He took hides, cotton, and lumber down to New Orleans by raft and flatboat on the Kentucky, the Ohio, and the Mississippi Rivers, coming back overland on the Natchez Trace to Kentucky"..."By the time Nathaniel was eighteen, he was an expert rifleman and had a fine gun of his own which he fondly called 'Old Betsy Mayhew,' his faithful companion on his many journeys, his trusty protector against bandits, Indians, and wild beasts that infested the Trace..."

"The long, tedious journey across the Kentucky wilderness did not prevent visits back to Virginia.  It was while on a visit to his mother's brother, Captain Nathaniel Bowe, for whom he was named, that he married his first cousin, Martha Bowe "Pretty Polly".  It was a gay wedding on the day after Christmas, 1810, in the old Bowe home where his parents had been married before the American Revolution.  Captain Bowe gave Martha a slave named Aggie for her maid, and the young couple left for their Kentucky home where they were welcomed by the host of relatives who had settled at or near Lexington.  The following November their first child was born, and before the baby was a year old, Nathaniel went off to war"....1812

"Nathaniel Bowe Davis came home via Natchez in 1817 to announce to Martha that they were moving to Madison County, Alabama, to the newly established town of Huntsville."..."Not only did Nathaniel take his own family, but also a party of relatives with their household goods and slaves started the tramp and trek for Alabama.  His parents, Stephen and Elizabeth Davis, his brothers John and James, and his cousin Tinsley with their families joined the caravan that moved out from Lexington, Kentucky, through Maysville and Knoxville, Tennessee, down into the Tennessee Valley to the hilly country below...."

"Nathaniel and Martha prospered on the 320 acres they had bought.  Seven more children were born to them during the twenty-four years they lived in Alabama.  Besides farming and raising blooded horses, Nathaniel was speculating in land."...
"Nathaniel's grown children and his wife tried to persuade him to remain in Alabama, but in February 1841 he sold one of his slaves, Cynthia, and her two youngest children for $800 to liquidate his debts, sold his two quarters of land at a loss, sent his horses overland by a trusted slave and his nephew Fayette, traded Maggie, another slave, at Della's Landing for a large cotton boat, and with $50 cash in his pocket, loaded his family, his household goods and remaining slaves and started forth at the age of 57 to again seek his fortune."...

"Nathaniel Bowe Davis settled in DeSoto County, Mississippi, near the Tennessee line and built his house, for the next year he wrote to his son in Texas, Nat Hart Davis, from 'Forks of Horn Lake, Mississippi, November 23, 1842,' that because his cotton was planted in new ground it would not be able to mature all its bolls on stalks eight to nine feet high, and therefore his crop would be a little short of 1000 pounds per acre.  The letter was full of family news.  'Dr. Ragland's oldest daughter Louisa has been in Mississippi for a week amongst her kin working all the girls on her wedding clothes, for December 20 Martha is to be one of her waiters.  Her intended is Dr. Anderson of LaGrange, Tennessee, one of Deaf Smith's mounted rangers in Texas in '36.  The old folks on both sides are highly pleased, and I guess my Cousin Nat will give a mighty wedding at which enough of the young Davises will be present to colonize Texas.  We look for your Aunt Sally Rootes and Nat Beverly from the Land Office in Pontotoc about Christmas.  Your Uncle John is moving his family from Alabama, and G. Orval Ragland of Memphis expects his mother and five brothers and families to move down from Tuscumbia after Christmas.  We shall soon make a fair nation.  (This is the family whose father was buried in Knoxville when en-route from Virginia to Alabama in 1815.)'  There was news of other prospective weddings.  John Bowe was about to marry Miss Hogan, who had gone to school with Martha.  He must send the three youngest children back to Alabama to school...."

"He had the reputation of being a brilliant man.  His letters show him to have been an astute judge of political and economic conditions of his time.  In politics he was a staunch Whig.  An owner and trader of slaves, he became convinced in his old age that slavery was wrong, for he wrote in 1855, 'If slavery is not wrong, then one cannot believe in God, and the Bible may as well be thrown away.'  But it was against the law in Mississippi to set slaves free.  His wife, his children, and his slaves belonged to the Edmondson Presbyterian Church as is shown in the Session Book of that church.  On preaching day he would have his body servant Nelson place his chair under the shade trees if the weather permitted and soon draw around himself a larger crowd than was in the church, reluctant to leave his interesting conversation for the Calvinistic sermon within."

This is a exerpt from a work called Westward Ho! about seven generations of the Davis clan by Marjorie Davis Cameron with special focus on the life of Nathaniel Bowe Davis, based on letters he wrote to his son in Texas.  If you are interested in purchasing a copy, please contact David Ragland Davis: drdavis@midsouth.rr.com .