Thomas Davenport (d. 17 November 1838), member of the House of Representatives, was the son of Thomas Davenport and Betsey Guerrant Davenport. He was born early in the 1780s either in Cumberland County or in Halifax County, to which his parents had moved by 1783. Little is known about Davenport's education, but later in life he acquired a library of more than seventy titles, including poetry and the published letters of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. On 28 May 1799 Davenport posted a bond and on that date or soon afterward married Jane Davenport, probably a distant relation. Before her death on an unknown date, they had at least one daughter. Davenport had two sons, but it is unclear whether their mother was Jane Davenport or another woman whom he may or may not have married. He may have entered a common law marriage with Mary (or Polly) Varner and in his will he provided for her four minor children, a boy and three girls, who along with Varner took Davenport's surname after his death.
Davenport settled in the small Halifax County community of Meadville and obtained a license as a merchant. His business prospered, and within a few years many neighboring planters were in debt to him. On 25 May 1804 he was commissioned an ensign in the county militia, and on 6 August 1806 he won promotion to captain. From 1 April 1813 until 8 January 1814 Davenport commanded a militia company, part of the 5th Regiment, assigned to Norfolk. During April and May 1813 his company helped prepare the defenses at Craney Island but was not present during the British assault on 22 June of that year. Although his company was discharged on 8 January 1814, he was asked to serve on the regimental commander's staff until the end of that month. After the War of 1812, Davenport remained in the Halifax militia. In January 1816 he attained the rank of major and in February 1819 the rank of lieutenant colonel, a position he had resigned by November 1827.
In 1814 Davenport was commissioned a justice of the Halifax County Court. He sought a vacant seat in the House of Representatives in 1825 and polled almost 54 percent of the vote to defeat three other candidates. He continued to win reelection in the Sixth District, comprising the counties of Campbell, Halifax, and Pittsylvania, with little or no opposition until 1833, when he beat back two challengers for a fifth and final term. During the Nineteenth Congress (1825–1827) Davenport sat on the minor Committee on Expenditures in the Department of the Treasury, and beginning in 1829 he served on the Committee on Public Expenditures, which he chaired during his final term (1833–1835). He pursued his constituents' claims for back pay and Revolutionary War pensions, including obtaining congressional recognition of his father's Continental army service, but otherwise spoke little in formal proceedings. In 1834 he presented a memorial from his constituents on behalf of Alexander Boyd, who maintained that he had found a cure for scrofula but who demanded a monetary award before revealing it.
Davenport usually voted against internal improvements, particularly for other states. Not surprisingly, he opposed motions to consider antislavery petitions on the House floor. Like most other southern Democrats, Davenport voted in 1828 against what became known as the Tariff of Abominations and later for a bill that lowered those tariffs. In May 1830 he joined the majority in approving the Indian Removal Act, which authorized the president to grant land west of the Mississippi River to Indians who gave up their tribal land within the existing borders of the United States. In 1833 he opposed President Andrew Jackson's subtreasury scheme and his actions toward South Carolina during the Nullification Crisis. This split with Jackson's policies allowed Davenport's political opponent in the 1835 election, Walter Coles, of Pittsylvania County, to paint Davenport as an anti-Jacksonian and a Whig and led to Davenport's defeat by a narrow margin of 263 votes of 3,197 cast.
Davenport retired to manage his business interests in Meadville, where he had acquired a half-acre lot in 1820 and a second in 1827. At the time of his death, he also owned 190 acres of land on the Banister River northwest of Meadville and five slaves. Thomas Davenport died in Meadville on 17 November 1838 and most likely was buried in a family cemetery on his Banister River property, but no stone marks the burial site.
Sources Consulted:
Family information in Five-Generations Identified from the Pamunkey Family Patriarch, Namely Davis Davenport of King William County (2009), 52–53, in John Scott Davenport et al., Pamunkey Davenport Papers: The Further Chronicles of the Pamunkey Davenports (CD-ROM); Halifax Co. Marriage Bond Register, 1:42; Halifax Co. Deed Book, 28:292–293, 34:696–697; Compiled Military Service Records, War of 1812, Records of the Adjutant General's Office, Record Group 94, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.; Register of Militia Officers (1793–1809), Accession 36894, Rank Roll of Virginia Militia Officers (1793–1833), Accession 36898, and Company Order Book of Capt. Thomas Davenport, 5th Virginia Militia, Accession 39721, all in Virginia Department of Military Affairs, Record Group 46, Library of Virginia; Richmond Enquirer, 3 May 1825, 4 May 1827, 16 Aug. 1831, 23 Apr., 3 May 1833, 24, 28 Apr., 1, 5, 8 May 1835; Lynchburg Virginian, 2 Apr. 1835; Journal of the House of Representatives, 19th–23d Cong.; will, inventory, and estate accounts in Halifax Co. Will Book, 18:608–609, 19:188–190, 412–413, 20:473–474; death notices and obituaries in Lynchburg Virginian, 19 Nov. 1838 (died "on Thursday the 17th inst." "in the 56th year of his age" [Thursday was 15 Nov. and Saturday was 17 Nov.]), Richmond Whig and Public Advertiser, 20 Nov. 1838 (died on 17 Nov. in his fifty-fourth year), and Charlestown Virginia Free Press, 29 Nov. 1838 (died on 17 Nov. in his fifty-fourth year).
Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by Stuart Lee Butler.
How to cite this page:
Stuart Lee Butler,"Thomas Davenport (d. 1838)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2016 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Davenport_Thomas, accessed [today's date]).
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