Elizabeth T. C. Beale to Hope Alice Murphy

Elizabeth Tayloe Corbin Beale and Williams Thomas Davis

As his brother before him, Williams Thomas Davis found a bride in the family of Maj. Robert Beale. Williams T. Davis was also raised as a staunch Methodist and also claimed the title of Reverend. He was the founder of the Southern Female College of Petersburg, of which he remained president until his death. It is said that he was a member of the reserves which were engaged in the defense of Petersburg during the Civil War at the time of the Kautz raid. Elizabeth T. C. Beale Davis died at Randolph-Macon College on 24 January 1851 at the young age of 35.

Williams T. Davis and Elizabeth Tayloe Corbin Beale were married on 22 December 1837. They had the following children:

• Martha Emma Davis (1839 – 1899)
• William Hoomes Davis (1840 – 1863)
• Hope Alice Davis (1843 – 1930)
• Richard Beale Davis (1845 – 1917)
• Joseph Claiborne Davis (1846 – 1926)
• Emily Ann Davis (1848 – 1927)

Hope Alice Davis was said to have been a very spirited lady, and a lady of many parts. She was well educated, both of her parents having been determined and well equipped to see her properly schooled. Following the Civil War, she was quite an eligible lady, and caught the eye of a dashing young, ramrod straight former Confederate soldier turned merchant in the new economy after hostilities. Olive Branch Morgan (known as O. B.) was born in 1844 in Petersburg, VA. He suffered early family tragedies, losing both parents before he was 8 years old and also his grandfather before he was 20 years old. In 1862, with no family remaining and nothing to lose, O. B. joined the Lunenburg Artillery, which was then camped at Chaffin’s Bluff near his home in Petersburg. He must have been a very forceful character with an iron will, as this young man, not yet twenty years old, rose in the next two years or so to become the battery Sergent Major, the most senior enlisted man in the battery, and the one who makes all work assignments and determines any disciplinary action not requiring an officer’s intervention. He was wounded – shot through the left wrist – and captured at the Battle of Saylers Creek in the final defense of Petersburg. The war nearly over, he was paroled relatively quickly. He married Hope Alice Davis on 8 July 1869 in Petersburg. The two were a tender, devoted couple to the end of their lives together. They had the following children:

• Olive Leigh Morgan (1870 – 1950)
• Branch Beale Morgan (1872 – 1938)
• Hope Alice Morgan (1874 – 1970)
• Robert McIlwaine Morgan (1877 – )
• Richard Davis Morgan (1879 – 1908)
• George Dwight Morgan (1882 – 1970)

Edward Turner Dadmun arrived in Petersburg from Massachusetts in the 1880s as a Methodist preacher and educator. He met Olive Leigh Morgan in Petersburg, probably as part of the congregation of the Washington Street Church. They were married on 21 July 1891 in Petersburg.They had the following children:

• Hope Alice Dadmun (1893 – 1962)
• Charlotte Dadmun (1896 – 1971)
• Edward Henry Dadmun (1898 – 1963)
• Branch Morgan Dadmun (1903 – )
• Robert Dadmun (1906 –

Marvin Murphy had met his future bride a few times between 1900 and 1930.  In fact, she was his cousin, the granddaughter of Williams Thomas Davis, his mother’s uncle.  Hope Alice Dadmun (1893 – 1962) visited Ayrfield several times in her youth as she met her country family (she grew up in Petersburg and Richmond) and spent some time away from the city.  The details of the courtship are lost to us now, but Marvin Murphy at the tender age of 53 married Hope Alice Dadmun on 23 July, 1932.  They had only one child, Hope Alice Murphy, born in 1935.

Hope Alice Murphy, known to this day as Jackie, grew up at Ayrfield, attended St. Margaret’s School in Tappahannock and Women’s College of Greensboro in North Carolina.  She returned to Ayrfield and helped with the farm, gradually taking it over from her parents, who died within a few months of each other in 1962.

Jackie met her cousin Arthur Davis Whittaker during many of his visits to Kinsale over the years.  His mother lived in Kinsale and he visited when he could.  He had started going to sea in the late 1930s, and following World War II he spent some time helping Marvin Murphy with some surveying, picking up a little more of the trade, as he had done some surveying in a CCC camp in the mid-1930s.  He went back to sea, and had become a very successful engineer in oil tankers for National Bulk Carriers by the 1950s.  He spent a lot of time away, but always returned to Kinsale to catch up with his family.  He and Jackie were married on 7 October, 1961 at Ayrfield.

Arthur ended his seagoing career in 1964 and took up land surveying as his father in law had done.  Jackie had inherited all of her father’s equipment and Marvin had built an office at Ayrfield to store his tools and to do his office work and drafting.  Arthur took it all over in the early 1970s after surveying for several years with an old Navy Seabee named J. Arthur Cooke, where he finished learning his trade and obtained his own surveyors license.  He surveyed land the rest of his life also, semi-retiring at the age of 80 in 1993.  He died quietly on 26 June, 1997, 13 days after his 84th birthday.

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