The Dictionary of Virginia Biography is published online through a partnership with Encyclopedia Virginia. Biographies that do not also appear in the three print volumes (surnames Aaroe�Daniels) link to lists of sources consulted.
Sources consulted for the biography of:William Roscoe Davis ( –1904)
Primary Sources
- Death date and age ninety-two at death in Davis Family Bible Record, Accession 52603, Library of Virginia.
- Age 54 on September 6, 1870 in United States Census Schedules, Elizabeth City County, 1870; age 63 on June 25, 1880 in United States Census Schedules, Elizabeth City County, 1880; and birth date of May 1814 in United States Census Schedules, Elizabeth City County, 1900, all in Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.
- Letters discussing Davis in American Missionary 5 (1861): 246–249 (first quotation on 249, second quotation on 248).
- Descendants' family records and personal papers in Davis Family Papers (1876–2007) in David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.
- Elizabeth City County Will Book, 3:436–437, Library of Virginia.
Secondary Sources
- Arthur P. Davis (grandson), "William Roscoe Davis and His Descendants," Negro History Bulletin 13 (1950): 75–89, 95, with birth date about 1812 and death date three days before author's birth on November 21, 1904.
- Robert Francis Engs, Freedom's First Generation: Black Hampton, Virginia, 1861–1890 (1979).
- Joe M. Richardson, Christian Reconstruction: The American Missionary Association and Southern Blacks, 1861–1890 (1986), 59, 95–96.
Newspapers
- Likely reference to suit for wife's freedom in "The Contrabands at Fortress Monroe," Atlantic Monthly 8 (1861): 637
- American Missionary 5 (1862): 83
- Hampton True Southerner, November 24, 1865; December 21, 1865; January 4, 1866; February 8, 1866
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