The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-04-14
HARDING DAVIS
 FAvORITE HILLS SCENE OF GLOOM
Countryside Mourns Author and War Correspondent,
 Who Died Suddenly

|
 l Mount Kisco. April 14-The body of yesterday to Philadelphia, where it will be cremated. The burial will l take place Saturday or Sunday. Mrs. Davis is prostrated and probably will ] not make the journey to Phi1adel- ] phia.
 | Richard Harding Davis was known Igby Westchester county not as the world knew him, an author and news paper correspondent, but as man 1 who loved the great outdoors Among his neighbors around Cross Roads Farm. his home in Mount Kis- co, he was better known as a yielder l of an axe and the handler of gun 1 or rod than a master of the pen. On foot or horse he spent most of what ever part of the day he was not en- gagged in writing out in the open air. He was a true disciple of the stren- uous life.
 Cross Roads Farm, high up on the tumbled, wind blown hills of West chester. was the birthplace of all the author later work. From the freshness of the surrounding country and the mutabi1ity of the seasons he obtained much of the stimulus to write. And his ram bling big country house. which was literally lost behind the Ranges, came to be a retreat to him, a kind of harbor to return to after his adventurous trips into the world as a war correspondent. Six miles back in the hills from reached by winding roads, swelling and falling as the contour of the country changes, and then through a little lane that wanders up hill and down dale apparently purposely. Af- fer all the world has been left be- hind, the world of brick house and sidewalk, and has been forgotten for the moment, one suddenly bursts into the vale where the house stands.
 The ''farmhouse,'' long, low building Of rough stone and weather stained shingles, blends into the 1and-a scape as perfectly as the big ciump of trees behind the house. On ev-> Cry side is a. sea, of hills. Nestled at the foot of one of these which the house overlooks is Byram Lake, a sheet of turquoise blue. which the natives say is bottonaless. And to the right and left stretch away the forest land which forms the bulk of the. 365 acre estate preserve it might better be called.
 It was here that MT. Davis lived with his wife, who was Bessie Mccoy. and Hope, their baby, named after the heroine of Soldiers of Fortune, the book MT. Davis liked best of all his works. And in the household, almost as members of the family were also horse, and two Chow dogs, the partic- ular pets of Mrs. Davis Jimmy was the horse MT. Davis was most fond of riding and which generally threw him, too,'s according to his groom.
 Those who had known Bessie Mo Coy as the 'tYaIna Eama girl" would have scarcely recognized the actress ipT,1 <7i dressed in hunting boots. short skirt, sweater and felt hat, tramped the hills with her husband. With her marriage Mrs Davis abandoned Broadway At the restauraIats where she was forme mer1y a we'll known figure she was no longer seen. She became ! a country dweller and rarely came to the city.
 Even in her husbands absences as a war correspondent in France and later in Salonilci she never deserted her country home. All their life was centred around the farm" and when MT. Davis returned from the and ready for him. During the most severe part of the last winter when MT Davis was in Greece, Mrs. Davis and Hope moved down to one of Frank Scribner' s cottages on the out skirts of the town so that they would
 
 1 the special milk with which the baby 1 was fed. But early in February on ] his return back the family went into | the hills
 On a fall afternoon the author and ! Mrs. Davis could be seen hiking swung along with a gun or rifle in swung along with gun or riheh in his hand, but he rarely shot anything as he preferred the live animals about | him. Often he had. his chauffeur Il drive him ten or fifteen miles away abandon the machine and walk back across country.
 The writer was delft with an axe often carrying one on his trannps tc
 blaze a trail or clear out an over l grown wood road. And in the spring it was his custom along about sun set to take a cast CT two in the lake to see if any of the trout would rise to the fly.
 Mir Davis was fine specimen oi a man. Six feet te.ll and weighing | 1s0 pounds,v he lived like an athlete Hardened by his campaigns with ar. mics all over. the world, his endurance ! was remarkable. He worked hard played hard, and lived clean. He made his own life like tho career o1 one of his own heroes.
 + In the town MT. Ravis was vel liked Under Sheriff Doyle he was lrnade a deputy sheriff of Westche Ecounty To the townspeop1e he was Islxnown simply as Richard HardingS to his friends he was ttDicky Davis A1th ough he never took an active part in town affairs or mixed in local poli- tics. the writer had large number of strong friends in the community I in which he lived