FIRST GENERATION, SEVENTH CHILD OF BENJAMIN BABCOCK

Was Jehu’s Mother a Davis?

We are now beginning to understand our DNA matches with descendants of David Rogers Davis. Not including direct descendants of Jehu, dozens of his descendants’ DNA matches are consistent with them being our fifth cousins. This suggests that Jehu’s mother was a Davis. In 1827 David Rogers Davis left his Will naming his children. All his surviving daughters were married but none to a Babcock. It appears from the 1820 census that Ms Davis was no longer in Benjamin’s household. If she died before 1920, it would explain how she could be the mother of Jehu and daughter of David Rogers Davis but not named in his will. We are searching for evidence to identify Ms. Davis. The Will of David Rogers Davis was recorded in DeRuyter, about 10 miles from Otselic.

What We Know

By 1840 and in 1850, Jehu, his wife Elsa, and their children were in Otselic, about a hundred miles from Petersburg. Jehu’s transition could have involved living and working on a Davis farm or the farm of his uncle Johnson Babcock, 30 miles from Otselic. Elsa Richer lived in Otselic or elsewhere in Chenango County, NY before 1820. In 1848 Wisconsin became a state and was giving away fertile farm land. The 1850 census record shows that Jehu, Elsa, and their children lived in Otselic and that neighbors included the extended Davis family. In the early 1850s, the Babcocks, the Davises and others moved to Wisconsin and became neighbors again. If Gilbert migrated with his family, he did not survive the trip. In 1855 they were east of New London and by 1860 southwest of New London. His monument in the family plot, Floral Hill cemetery, New London, shows that Jehu was also known as John Babcock. Here is a cemetery record of the Babcocks buried in the D-108 family plot.