ABSTRACT
Before he went to school most of Davis’ thought, perceptions and activities were spent in the rural surroundings of the Old York Road where his parents had bought a farmhouse known as Oak Farm. The Old York Road was part of the original stage route between Philadelphia and New York. When Davis’ family bought the farmhouse in 1850 the district was entirely undeveloped – 1,000 acres of woodland and pasture broken by the presence of an occasional small Quaker farm. It was not till the end of the Civil War that Davis’ father joined the syndicate which developed the land as a fashionable, residential district. In the early years Davis’ parents, Edward and Maria, shared the property with the family of Thomas Mott, a brother of Davis’ mother. The two families used to stay at the home of the grandparents at 338 Arch Street during the winter months and the Motts used to join them at Oak Farm during the summer. This arrangement ended in 1857 when the grandparents bought ‘Roadside’, another small farmhouse on the opposite side of the road to Oak Farm. Its situation is described as sunny and surrounded by cherry, apple and pear trees. When the grandparents grew older Davis’ father and mother went to live at Roadside in order to give them the closer care they were beginning to need (Hallowell, 1884; Hotchkin, 1892).
