Martha Davis

From Family Record, Written by Dr. Thomas Davis Parks of Elmwood, Missouri. Feb. 2nd, 1878

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~mlwilson/parks.pdf

As before remarked, Martha Cunningham was nine years old when her father settled at Rock Spring, and at Rock Spring she resided until her death at about eighty years of age. She was a woman of culture, so far as mental culture could be obtained in an almost uncultivated wilderness.

But although the early inhabitants of Augusta County were poor, they had Scotch perseverance and Irish sprightliness, and although they had but few books and no newspapers, they carried the Bible with them, and this was the basis of their philosophy, and very successfully did Martha Cunningham study that best of books. I have often heard my mother say that if any verse or passage of the Bible was repeated to her, my grandmother, she would instantly name book, chapter, and verse, so perfect was her memory, and so diversified that the neighbors relied on her for the ages of their children.

She lived on the same spot from childhood to old age, beloved and respected, and a blessing to all within the sphere of her influence, and died lamented by all who knew her.