dustry he transmitted to his posterity."[7]

Mr. James Davis, the subject of this sketch, was the third in descent of
that name.

At the age of fourteen he was bound an apprentice to a Mr. Crocker,--who
was also originally from Barnstable,--a pewterer, carrying on
business at the "South End" in Boston, not far from where stood the
mansion house of the late Mr. John D. Williams. Shortly after the
apprenticeship of Mr. Davis began, Mr. Crocker secured the services of a
Hessian,--supposed to be a deserter from the British army,--who
understood and communicated the art of making castings of brass and
copper. From this time and from this beginning, as Mr. Davis firmly
believed, ships built in New England were fastened with bolts, spikes,
etc., made of _composition_ instead of iron as had formerly been the
invariable practice. Mr. Crocker was a man of somewhat irregular habits,
and not infrequently severe in his treatment of the apprentices, of
whom, as was then quite a common custom, he always had several. At this
time it happened that they all revolted and left him, save Mr. Davis,
the youngest of the number. He remained alone to the end of his term,
faithfully complying with every condition of his indenture.

In 1800 Mr. Davis, then twenty-three years of age, hired a shop on Union
Street, and started in business for himself as a brass founder. He was
in some way connected with Martin Gay, a proscribed and banished
royalist of the American Revolution and an absentee from 1776 to
1792.[8] On the return of Mr. Gay in the last-named year he resumed his
trade, of a coppersmith probably, on the property in Union Street, which
had meanwhile been held and occupied by his wife Ruth, and whose dower
therein had been set off to her by the Probate Court. Mr. Gay is
thereafter denominated a founder, a designation it is thought he may
have derived from his employment of, or association with, Mr. Davis. Mr.
Gay subsequently proposed to Mr. Davis to sell to him the business, and
further to aid him with such pecuniary assistance as he might require in
its prosecution. This proposition was finally accepted, but not without
some considerable hesitation on the part of Mr. Davis, as he had no
security to offer for the indebtedness involved. No security was
required, nor was any ever given, but the transaction was fully
completed by a transfer, and by its ultimate payment without default. In
1807 the remainder of Mr. Gay's original interest i