Mary
(Younkin) Caton Davis
(1835- ? )
Mary (Younkin) Caton was born in 1835 most likely near Kingwood, Somerset County, PA, the daughter of John M. and Laura (Minerd) Younkin. Very little is known of her life.
Mary resided as an adult in Dunbar, Fayette County, PA, and was married twice, first to a man named Caton, and second to Ed Davis (1822- ? ).
Dunbar
was a bustling industrial town in the late 1800s, halfway between Connellsville
and Uniontown. Many of Mary's cousins migrated there for employment. A rare
photograph of the Dunbar Furnace is seen at right.
When the federal census was taken in 1880, the Davises were enumerated in Dunbar Township, Fayette County. Ed, age 58, was a laborer who was marked as "thigh hurt." Mary, age 45, was listed as house keeper.
Nothing more about them is known.
In October 1934, Mary was named in extensive genealogy manuscript records compiled by distant cousins Otto Roosevelt Younkin and Charles Arthur Younkin, who were gathering data in connection with the Younkin clan's new national home-coming reunion. Click here to see Otto's handwritten and typed notes about Mary, based on an interview conducted with her elderly brother, Daniel Martin Younkin.
This biography is adapted from one that originally appeared in the article, "Whispers of the Silence and the Slow Time," in the April, May, June 1996 edition of the Younkin Family News Bulletin, published by the late Donna Younkin Logan.
Copyright
© 1996, 2000, 2001, 2006, 2008 Mark A. Miner.
Dunbar Furnace photo courtesy of the Dunbar Historical Society