Henry Spingler Fonerden Davis

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DAVIS, HENRY SPINGLER FONERDEN, well known in metropolitan social life, was descended from notable American lineage. Born August 5, 1857, on the Spingler estate in New York City, where the family has continuously resided for a period of one hundred and fifty years or more, he was the son of John William Davis and Mary Louise Van Beuren. His paternal grandfather, Dr. John Davis, is remembered as a skilled physician, living on Bond street, in the days when that thoroughfare was select and fashionable. The family is of English origin. Coming to this country in the seventeenth century, the founders of the American branch of the family settled first at Bound Brook, New Jersey, but subsequently removed to New York City. The wife of Dr. Davis, mother of John William Davis and grandmother of Henry Spingler Fonerden Davis, was Sarah Banks Reynolds, who came of equally eminent stock, the family having settled here at a very early date, receiving a grant of lands at Greenwich, Conn., from Queen Anne, some of which remains in the family possession at the present day. Through his mother, Henry Spingler Fonerden Davis was descended from the Van Beuren family of New York. Left in the possession of important landed interests, Mr. Davis found plenty to occupy his time and attention in the care and management of his large estates. He owned among other valuable holdings, an extensive ranch in the State of Kansas, on which he lived for a number of years and in the development of which he exercised a keen and untiring interest. He was a member of the Metropolitan Club, of New York, and the St. Nicholas Club of the same city, in which latter body he was at one time one of the governors. He also belonged to the New York Yacht Club, and he evinced a great pride in the achievements of his yacht, "Inia." In his younger days he was greatly devoted to athletics. He was married to Cora Baker, daughter of Col. Charles T. Baker, of the United States Army, her mother being a Miss Dwight. Two children were born to this union, but both died in infancy. Mr. Davis was an invalid during the final years of his life, and he died of apoplexy at his home on Riverside drive in New York, January 25, 1905. Source: The Memorial Cyclopedia of the Twentieth Century.