Davis, James E.

Born: 1791-04-23 Kentucky

James E. Davis was a lawyer, judge, mayor, and War of 1812 veteran. In March 1813, he enlisted as fourth sergeant in John C. Morrison's company of the Thirteenth Regiment of Kentucky Militia. He served in the militia until September 1813, seeing action at the Battle of the Miami ("Dudley's Defeat") in May 1813. In May 1815, Davis married Margaret Moore, with whom he had three children, son Joseph A. Davis and daughters Mary E. Randall and Jouetta D. Finney. In 1821, he represented Fayette County in the Kentucky House of Representatives. From 1835 to 1836, he was mayor of Lexington, Kentucky. In the 1840s, he moved to New Orleans, where he practiced law.

Bayles v. Crossman, et als, The American Law Record. 1876-1877, ed. by Herman M. Moos and John M. Pattison (Cincinnati: Bloch, 1877), 5:17; Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Kentucky. Soldiers of the War of 1812 (Frankfort, KY: E. Polk Johnson, 1891), 206; Lewis Collins and Richard H. Collins, Collins' Historical Sketches of Kentucky. History of Kentucky, rev. ed. (Covington, KY: Collins, 1874), 2:741-45; Kentucky, U.S., Compiled Marriages, 1802-1850, 29 May 1815, Fayette County (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 1997); George W. Ranck, History of Lexington Kentucky (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke, 1872), 178, 322; Genealogies of Kentucky Families From the Register of the Kentucky Historical Society O-Y (Baltimore: Genealogical, 1981), 717; Gravestone, Margaret T. Davis, Cyprus Grove Cemetery, New Orleans, LA.