William Henry Davenport

[Diane Merkel]

I don't believe Davenport has been discussed here since 2006!

lbha.proboards.com/thread/1340/barsantee-clark-crump

I need some help with a mystery, please.

There are two men named William H. Davenport listed as Privates in Company B in my usual references, Men with Custer (2000 ed., Nichols), Participants (Wagner), and Military Register (Williams). Here's the comparison:

	Nichols	Wagner	Williams
Born	June 1849	June 1858
Place	Williamsburg, NY	Williamsburg, NY	Williamsburg, NY
Died	30 March 1934	30 March 1934	18 December 1904
Place	Flushing, NY	Flushing, NY	Missoula, MT
Burial	Flushing Cemetery	Flushing Cemetery

The obit for the one who died in New York is very short and doesn't mention any military service. The obit for the one who died in Missoula states he “. . . was with Custer previous to the battle of the Little Big Horn.” All three sources agree he was with Company B at the time of LBH, so there was nothing "previous" about it.

According to Williams, the Missoula Davenport was “employed as actor in theatre at Bismarck & Fargo to 1887 when he moved to Montana; died 18 Dec. 1904 Missoula MT.” Williams' source for the acting: “Mentioned in numerous issues of Bismarck Tribune from March 1878” and for his death: “The Daily Missoulian (Missoula, Mont.), Dec. 19, 1904; The Fargo (N.Dak.) Forum, Dec. 20, 1904. Obituary declares Will Davenport born 1852 at Boston.” The date is within the realm of possibility, but the only other mention of Boston in the three sources is that Davenport first enlisted there. A copy of that Davenport's marriage license in 1899 states he was born in Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts. Surely the man would know where he was born.

I'm inclined to believe the Davenport who died in Flushing in 1934 was the one who served in Company B, but I welcome information to the contrary.

Diane

[Kentishman]

Diane, I came across your post of April 17 earlier this evening and, although this trooper did not hail from the UK, William Henry Davenport [WHD], nonetheless captured my interest. After spending something under an hour looking into this mystery I am convinced WHD was the man who died in Missoula and equally convinced that he wasn't the one buried in Flushing. My starting point was to look at the bold details of his enlistment, which immediately made me think something was amiss, i.e. a 5' 7 1/4" (not 5' 9 1/4" as stated in both Wagner and Williams) recruit age 22 being previously employed as a policemen just didn't seen right. A little too short and a little too young? But then by chance I came across a reference to him in the Bismarck Tribune, February 15, 1879, which describes him as "the rising young comedian." So, admittedly pure conjecture on my part at this stage, I submit that on enlistment (for reasons unknown) he consciously concealed his true identity by providing incorrect information about his age, place of birth, occupation and, equally feasible, his personal name (I've yet to trace a place and date of birth). He may not even be William Henry Davenport after all! [e.g. 1. Quartermaster Thomas W. Causby's real name was Thomas Causby Woolfitt. 2. Martin Personeus enlisted as Michael Conlan. 3. There are many others). His marriage in 1899 soon ended in divorce and his ex-wife, Chloe Amelia Boone, married in Canada a second time the year following his death. He was buried in Missoula Cemetery (no headstone). Lastly, his erroneous family history can be traced to Ken Hammer's Men With Custer: Biographies of the 7th Cavalry (1995), p.82. A fascinating story, indeed.

[edavids]

Welcome btw Kentishman!

[Diane Merkel]

Thank you, kentishman! I am traveling so I have just a minute to acknowledge your post. I will read it more carefully soon. I think the Missoula Davenport is going to win.

Diane

[Kentishman]

There is an important caveat that applies to U.S. Army records, such as the Registers of Enlistments, oaths of allegiance, etc. as a source of information, which by default or design are notoriously unreliable. We know that a large number of recruits in the 7th Cavalry were newly-arrived immigrants from non-English speaking areas of Ireland and countries in continental Europe. Others, including Americans, were poorly educated which further increased the chances of misunderstanding. Of course, for a whole host of reasons, many simply chose to conceal their true identity by deliberately providing spurious details about their name, age and/or place of birth. Thus, Pvt John S. Stuart Forbes enlisted as a private under the name “John S. Hiley,” Pvt James Pym said that he was “age 22” on Dec. 11, 1874, when in fact he was born November 7, 1847; and Sgt Maj. William H. Sharrow would have us believe that he was “born at sea” despite indisputable evidence that it was on terra firma in the ancient village of Sheriff Hutton, near York, England. In all three cases the correct information is now generally quoted but it begs to the question: Is the information contained within the pages of published biographies about other troopers, and even officers (e.g. Henry Jackson), always as faithful as it purports to be?  By the very nature of the beast, one suspects not.  That being said the contribution to our knowledge of the men who served with Custer made by Hammer, Carroll, Nichols, Williams and Wagner, cannot be over-stated. We all owe them a great debt of gratitude.
To address the point raised above, in the biographies on my website – www.menwithcuster.com – I quote “Date and place of birth, and personal name have not yet been verified,” where applicable.  In many cases this information will never be known.

[Kentishman]

Now having had a little more time to research the true identity of Private William Henry Davenport (WHD), and possibly run the risk of ‘gilding the lily’, I would nonetheless like to add another two (final) cents worth to this conundrum.

First, the WHD who is buried in Flushing Cemetery was born in Clayville, New York, which is around 250 miles from Williamsburg, is DEFINITELY NOT the private in Company B.

Second, the only references to the REAL Seventh Cavalry WHD date from his enlistment in 1876 which, after a near exhaustive search of the usual archives, leads me to the conclusion that he almost certainly joined the Army under an assumed name, i.e. he’s NOT a Davenport at all. That being said, he could well have been born in Boston.

His post-Army life is an interesting one indeed but it need not concern us here other than to look at the reference to his death I found in addition to those quoted in Diane’s original post.

Bismarck Daily Tribune, December 20, 1904,

“Will H. Davenport, an old time vaudeville artist and ex-regular in the United States army, is dead at Missoula, Mont., of apoplexy. Davenport was attached to the famous Seventh cavalry as an enlisted man with Reno at the time of the Custer Massacre.”

I may post something about his life in the theatre on my website when time permits. It would make for some fascinating reading.

PS While the new and expanded edition of Men With Custer: Biographies of the 7t h Cavalry, 2010, (ed. Nichols) continues to state that WHD was born in Williamsburg, New York, the date and place of death has been updated (from Diane's 2000 edition) to concur with Military Register (Williams).

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