Can anyone help with information on a part African-American, Robert Thomas Davis who is my wife's GG grandfather, on her father's side?
Robert Davis is believed to be a son of Thomas Davis, a farmer & Rosetta Johnson, an African-American slave. After participating in the California Goldrush (which began in 1848), R.T. Davis sailed from San Francisco on June 14, 1852 on the “Ceres”, which was ship-wrecked in the Fijian Islands July 22, 1852. Those on board were rescued by a whaler, “Daniel Watson” & taken to Auckland, NZ. He arrived in Australia on the “William Hyde” in October 1852, embarking in Port Phillip, Melbourne, in the then Colony of Victoria. He moved to the gold fields, first Ballarat and then to Sandhurst (later known as Bendigo), where he settled, worked as a digger & carter and raised a large family.
The following is an extract of his obituary published in a newspaper on October 4, 1913:
Mr. Robert Davis, of Strickland Road, Bendigo, died yesterday morning at the age of 100 years. The deceased gentleman celebrated his centenary last month, having been born in September, 1813. He was a colored man, a native of Bellfield, Virginia, U.S.A. He arrived in Sydney in 1852, and proceeded to Ballarat, where he remained till the night before the Eureka Stockade fight. Making his way to the Bendigo goldfields, he arrived here in 1853, and had resided here ever since, following the occupation of a digger and fossicker.
The spelling of Robert's place of origin in Virginia (VA), USA has been reported above as both “Belfield” & “Bellfield”. The latter is used on his death certificate. In VA, there two different places of origin dependent on the spelling viz Belfield, a former town & now part of the city of Emporia in Greensville Co & Bellfield (Plantation) in York Co.
