As Pekin prepares to celebrate Juneteenth with two special events on Friday and Saturday this week, today at “From the History Room” we will tell the story of Corp. Allen Travis Davison (c.1843-c.1902) of the 47th U.S. Colored Infantry, Co. D, who was present with his regiment at Galveston, Texas, at the first Juneteenth.
We first “met” Corp. Davison three years ago, in our survey of the African-American families who lived in Pekin during the 19th century. As we saw then, Allen Travis Davison appears as a Pekin resident in the 1870 and 1880 U.S. Censuses, as well as the 1876 Pekin City Directory.
Corp. Davison was not a Pekin native, and did not arrive in Pekin until after the Civil War. He was born into slavery in Alabama probably around 1845. An 1880 Tazewell County marriage record gives his parents as Chapman Davis (sic) and Charlotte Andrews. His Civil War service records say he was 20 years old when he enlisted in March of 1864, but the 1900 U.S. Census says he was born Aug. 1848, and other census records supply ages that are more in line with 1848 as his year of birth rather than 1843. As was common back then, he probably didn’t know his date of birth, but the correct year was probably closer to 1843 than 1848.
His military service records usually spell his name “Travers Davidson,” but sometimes those records spell his name “Travis Davidson,” and one time his name was even mis-transcribed as “Francis” Davidson. After the war, though, we often find his name spelled as “Travis Davison,” with him occasionally appearing as “Allen T. Davison,” and “A. T. Davison.”
Corp. Davison first enlisted in the armed services on 5 May 1863 at Lake Providence, Louisiana, when he joined the 8th Louisiana Infantry (African Descent). That regiment was reorganized in March of 1864 as the 47th U.S. Colored Infantry at Vicksburg, Mississippi. He signed up for three years of service on 10 March 1864 and was assigned to Co. D with the rank of Private.
The National Park Service’s website provides this overview of the 8th Louisiana Infantry (African Descent) and 47th U.S.C.I. service during and after the Civil War (emphasis added):
8th Louisiana Infantry (African Descent) — volunteers:
Organized at Lake Providence, La., May 5, 1863. Attached to African Brigade, District of Northeast Louisiana. to July, 1863. Post of Vicksburg, District of Vicksburg, Miss., to March, 1864. 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, United States Colored Troops, District of Vicksburg, March, 1864.
SERVICE: Duty at Lake Providence, La., till July, 1863. Post duty at Vicksburg, Miss., till March, 1864. Expedition up Yazoo River February 1-March 8, 1864. Liverpool Heights February 4. Capture of Yazoo City February 4. Satartia February 7. Occupation of Yazoo City February 9-March 6. Skirmish Yazoo City March 5. Designation of Regiment changed to 47th U. S. Colored Troops March 11, 1864.
47th U.S. Colored Infantry:
Organized March 11, 1864, from 8th Louisiana Infantry, African Descent. Attached to 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, U. S. Colored Troops, District of Vicksburg, Miss., to October, 1864. 2nd Brigade, 4th Division, 16th Corps, to November, 1864. 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, U.S. Colored Troops, District of Vicksburg, Miss., to February, 1865. 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, U. S. Colored Troops, Military Division West Mississippi, to June, 1865. Dept. of the Gulf to January, 1866.
SERVICE: Post and garrison duty at Vicksburg, Miss., till October, 1864. Expedition from Haines Bluff up Yazoo River April 19-23. Near Mechanicsburg April 20. Lake Providence May 27. Moved to mouth of White River, Ark., October 15. Duty there and at Vicksburg, Miss., till February, 1865. Ordered to Algiers, La., February 26 thence to Barrancas, Fla. March from Pensacola, Fla., to Blakely, Ala., March 20-April 1. Siege of Fort Blakely April 1-9. Assault and capture of Fort Blakely April 9. Occupation of Mobile April 12. March to Montgomery April 13-25. Return to Mobile and duty there till June. Moved to New Orleans, La., thence to Texas, and duty on the Rio Grande and at various points in Texas, till January, 1866. Mustered out January 5, 1866.
Regiment lost during service 1 Officer and 30 Enlisted men killed and mortally wounded and 3 Officers and 398 Enlisted men by disease. Total 432.
As is shown by the attached jpg, Pvt. Travis Davison was present with his regiment in June 1865 while they were in Texas – he was there with Bill Costley, the Ashby men, and so many others at the first Juneteenth.
In the last couple months of his service to his country, Pvt. Travis Davison was promoted to the rank of Corporal. He was mustered out at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on 5 Jan. 1866.
After the war, we next find Corp. Davison in Tazewell County, Illinois, in 1869. Why he decided to move to Illinois, and specifically to Tazewell County, we can only guess – but it is probable that while he was in Texas, he met the Ashby men, and probably Pvt. Bill Costley too, and headed up the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers to join them in Pekin.
Tazewell County marriage records show that Travis Davison married Sarah Jane Shipman on 1 Nov. 1869. The Shipman surname should be very familiar to those who have read what Susan Rynerson and I have written about Moses and Milly Shipman and their family. An 1880 Peoria County marriage record gives her name as Sarah Jane Shipman but confusingly says her maiden name was Christman and that her parents were David Christman and Eliza Ashwood. Those are evidently mistranscriptions of the names “David Shipman” and “Eliza Ashby,” who are known to have had a son and a daughter.
Significantly, the 1870 U.S. Census records for Pekin show Allen T. Davison, 23, born in Alabama, fireman in distillery, and Sarah J. Davison, 18, born in Illinois, living in the household of Edwin and Elizabeth Howard. Why were they living with the Howards? Because Elizabeth Howard was Sarah’s mother, Elizabeth (Ashby-Shipman) Howard. Edwin Howard was the second husband of Elizabeth (“Eliza”).
Travis Davison’s marriage to a Shipman whose mother was an Ashby, who furthermore was probably a sister of Nathan Ashby and Marshall Ashby, suggests that Travis met the Ashby men at Juneteenth or during their duty in Texas. But even if he didn’t, and his coming to Pekin was just a coincidence, he and the Ashbys, and Bill Costley, likely would have been able to share war stories – they were bound not just by race but by the personal roles they’d played in their nation’s life-and-death struggle.
The next record of Corp. Travis Davison is in the 1876 Pekin City Directory, which shows: “Davison Travis, foreman distil’ry, res ns Isabel 1d w Second” (“foreman” here is an error for “fireman”). Three years later, the 1879 Peoria City Directory shows: “Davison Travis, hostler, alley rear 215 Fulton; rooms same.”
We don’t know if Travis and Sarah ever had any children, and in any case they separated and were divorced by 1880. On 12 June 1880 in Tazewell County, Travis married a white woman named Mary Elizabeth Leighton (1862-1955), 18, daughter of Silas W. and Harriett E. Leighton. Later that summer, on 27 Aug. 1880 in Peoria County, Travis’ ex-wife Sarah married Charles Smith of Peoria, born circa 1854 in Hamilton, Illinois, son of Cester (sic) and Elizabeth Smith. It is notable that in this record, Sarah’s name is given as “Sarah Jane Shipman,” not “Sarah Jane Davison.” It may be that her marriage to Travis had been so unhappy that she erased it from her personal history by going back to her maiden name. As for Sarah, I believe (but cannot prove) that she is the Sarah Smith who died of pneumonia in June 1893 in Peoria (living at the intersection of Cedar and May at the time of her death), and was buried in Moffatt Cemetery.
Now, there is something quite remarkable about the marriage record of Travis Davison and (Mary) Elizabeth Leighton, because it gives her parents as “Charles and May L. Leighton.” This is a problem, because there was only one Mary Elizabeth Leighton, 18, in Tazewell County in 1880, and she was the daughter of Silas and Harriett Leighton of Groveland. I can find no Charles and May Leighton anywhere on record, but I note that Elizabeth herself had a younger brother named Charles. After looking at all the evidence, it would appear Elizabeth gave false names for her parents, probably to hide from them the fact that she was marrying a black man.
In the 1880 U.S. Census, we find Elizabeth Leighton, 18, enumerated with her parents and siblings in Groveland, while Travis is enumerated in the household of a white couple named Edward and Mary Elster of Pekin. Those census records are dated to about the time that Travis and Elizabeth married.
The next record I find for Travis and Elizabeth is a Civil War pension index card, which says Travis applied for a Civil War pension as an invalid on 18 Aug. 1891 in Illinois, and Elizabeth applied for a widow’s pension on 10 July 1902 in Illinois.
We next find record of Corp. Davison in the Peoria City Directories, which list him from 1891 to 1899 as “Travers A. Davidson,” a resident of 1216 N. Monroe. During those years, he worked as an apprentice at the Nicol, Burt Co., but mostly found employment as a molder.
The 1900 U.S. Census for Steuben Township, Marshall County, Illinois, shows: Travis Davison, 51, b. Aug. 1848 in Alabama, black, parents’ birthplaces unknown, day laborer, wife Mary E. Davison, 38, b. May 1866 in Ill. of Ohio-born parents, white; married for 20 years, no children ever born.
This shows they were living in or near Sparland. Elizabeth’s date of birth in this record is wrong (she was born in Feb. 1862), and it was only her mother who was born in Ohio, but that may have been part of her keeping her marriage to a black man a secret. The 1900 U.S. Census for the family of Silas and Harriett Leighton shows them in Eureka, and “Mary E. Leighton”, “single,” is there listed as living with them. Whether that is a bit of dishonesty on Elizabeth’s part or her parents’ part (hiding her marrying and living with a black man), or rather an indication that her marriage was on the rocks and she and Travis had separated, is uncertain.
The 1929 Illinois Roll of Honor, Vol. 2, page 239, says Travis Davison died 27 June 1902 and was buried in Sparland Cemetery. The following month, as we have seen, his widow Mary Elizabeth filed for a Civil War widow’s pension.
Mary Elizabeth lived most of the rest of her life with her family in or near Eureka. By the 1940 census she was in Partridge in Woodford County, and at the time of the 1950 census she was in Washburn. She died at a Washburn nursing home on 3 Aug. 1955 and is buried in Olio Township Cemetery, Eureka.
