Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1896-09-15


Davis did not remain long at the Queen
farm He was snrTy for his desertion and
rcturn.d to his Iowa home He remained
only Il short time, however and went back
to tho Arkansas farm. where he began to
make love to the girl Hulda. He came and
went, wandering from place to place, GO
ing without taking leave and returning
without asking it. He wished to hide his
past and that is why Mrs. Smell knew
nothing but the merest fragments of his
history before 1889.
In 1871 Davis took up 4 permanent resi-
dcnco near the Queen farm, going into
partnership with n brother of Hulda The
young man had evidently forgotten his
wife and little ones in their Iowa home.
In ls42. after three years of courtship, he
married Hulda Queen. His first wife had
already obtained n divorce and month or
so later was married again. Her second
husband was Jeremiah Cornutt, who took
her and Ecr children back to Edgar coun-
ty, Ills.
Davis seemed to be happy in his new
homo in Arkansas, but he moved from
place tn place, sometimes disappearing
without cause ard returning without eX-
PLANTATION. In 1913 his first child was born.
In the following year the husband and IA
thcr left his hcIEc for Texas, where he
hoped to Secure some permanent residence
and Il living. He returned to learn that
his wife Hulda had received u farm as
gift from her father.
In ISIS he persuaded his wife to go with
him to Texas, and in the following year
he left for the goldficlds of California.
For n year after that Mrs. Davis received
letters from her husband, who was pros
recting on the Tuolumne river. He was
,tprp tN1
was greatly distressed when he wrote to
his wife that the dam Lad been washed
away and with it had vanished his hopes
of fortune. Mrs Davis received very few
letters after that, and a short time after
the last was sent from the mines.
There was Il year of silence, and then
Mrs. Davis sought u man who had arrived
| in Texas from the California mines. The
stranger told the woman that he had
known her husband when both worked on
| the Tuolumnc river. Davis had been
| killed, the stranger said, in a quarrel The
| long silence of the husband seemed to be
explained by his death. \ year later, in
| 1902, Mrs. Davis married J. E. Williams.
The couple lived for two years on the Tex
rs farm and then went to California. They
| took up their residence at Fort TETON, near
| the Tehachapi, where the aged woman has
| lived ever since. Williams had freight
| ing contract with the government His
duties took him frequently from home and
out on tie southern roads.
Many people stopped on their way at
the Williams home. 1t was natural that
| the young woman should question them
in reference to her first husband, A. J.
Davis, who. the stranger had told her, had
been killed in Il quarrel. These inquiries
1 i,pl n of IN ft,n TIrp
lumnc river. 1t was strange coincidence
that two men bearing the name OF a. J.
Davis were at that time mining on the
| Tuolumne river Both of these men had
been interested in the building of a dam
that had been washed away. Both showed
| several remarkable similarities in physical
| characteristics, although the two men
were in no way related. Both were known
as A. J. Davis, although the name of one
was Abraham John Davis and that of the
other was Andrew jackson Davis.
The inquiries Of the woman at Fort Te-
jon in no way seemed to interest Andrew
jackson Davis, but they seemed to possess
a remarkable interest for Abraham John
Davis, who started on his way to see tho
woman of Fort TETON and to learn who
she was. He arrived ut the fort one morn
ing shortly after Williams had left for n
door by Mrs. Williams. In Il moment the
woman recognized her first husband, who
had been killed, she thought. ut the mines
| Upbraidings followed, ard then Davis
went away. He said it had been all his
fault, but that he would never call another
woman his wife. That was in 1855, and
Mrs. Williams, or Mrs. Smell as she now
is, never saw him again. He left the
mines. but no one knew where he went
At the very same time Andrew Jackson
Davis left the Tuolumnc, and no one knew
what became CT him until his old friends
learned in 1889 that he had died ut Butte,
Mon, leaving fortune of between S16
900, 900 and $50, 600, 900
No one knew what had become of Abra-
ham John Davis, and no one knew that he
was not Andrew jackson Davis until De-
tcctivc Stilwell filed in the blank that be-
gan in 1866 and ended in 1865.
When Abraham John Davis left Tue
lumne in 1866, he returned to his Illinois
home and to the neighborhood in which
his first wife still lived He told his fam
lily of his strange experiences in the west,
but kept secret the episode of marriage
that began in Arkansas and closed with
the discovery at Fort TETON After remain
ing "a few months in Illinois, Davis mi
grated TO Missouri, where in Marys coun-
ty he purchased u farm and married his
third wife, Malinda Harris. Again his