R255 
Husband: Rev. Davis Morton Wood
Father: James Wood [R253]
Mother: Elizabeth (Davis) Wood [R253]
Born: 9/20/1819, in Botetourt County Va.
Died: 11/9/1904, in Botetourt County Va.
Wife: Sarah Eleanor (Ellen) (Reynolds) Wood
Father: Archelius Reynolds [R265]
Mother: Sally (Miller) Reynolds [R265]
Born: 9/29/1823, in Amherst County Va.
Died: 8/7/1911, in Botetourt County; buried in the Wood Family
Cemetery near Glen Wilton
Married: 10/19/1844. Bond posted, Samuel D. Wood; minister, William
H. Renick [S008]
Children:
Sarah Elizabeth (Bettie) Wood, 10/20/1845-10/2/1862 (died at age 17)
James Archelius (Jimmy) Wood [R256], 9/1/1847-3/2/1940
Rev. Davis Miller Wood, 8/6/1850-5/5/1889 (see below)
Lucy Eleanor (or Ellen) Wood, 10/20/1852-10/2/1920. Married A. H.
(or M. D.) Cary, ch. Lucy Cary Stevens, Miles Davis Cary. Widowed
as of 1899, lived in Montvale, Bedford County Va. in 1904. Buried in
Pulaski Va.
George Corbin Wood, 5/10/1855-2/12/1939. Lived in Huntington
W.Va. in 1904, buried there. Children Thomas, Lelia (Wood) McKee
William (Willie) Edward Wood [R266], 3/23/1858-8/18/1923
Lelia Damarius Wood, 8/7/1861-1938 (or 1943). M. 1st (7/26/1882)
Rev. Andrew W. Ruff (1847-1884, s. of Rev. John and Rebecca Ruff
of Rockbridge County Va.), s. Knox Ruff (1884-1886); m. 2nd
(5/24/1899) Samuel Hutchings Price (s. of Hutchings B. and Fannie J.
Price of Bedford County Va.). Lived in Montvale, Bedford County in
1904. Buried in Montvale Va.
Robert Reynolds (Rob) Wood, 1/19/1865-12/9/1930. M. 6/18/1895 to
Helena Riersen Gragard (1870-1932), ch. Annette (Annie) W. Wood
(m. William W. Williams, Wake County N.C. in 1940) and five
others. Lived in Huntington W.Va. in 1904. Buried in Charleston
W.Va.
Davis’s father sent him to the Botetourt Seminary in Fincastle, to train for the ministry (Fig. R255a). Davis delivered the Valedictory address upon his graduation in July 1840. His life was spent as a Methodist minister.
Davis married Sarah Eleanor Reynolds in 1844. When his parents died in 1846, Davis (their only child) inherited their James River property (tracts I1, J1, and J3 in Fig. R002c). Presumably the couple lived in the “James Wood house?” shown in Fig. R002c. In 1849 Davis’s uncle Thomas and aunt Sarah Wood [R252] gave him two additional tracts, T2 and T3 in Fig. R002c, aggregating 413 acres (DB19-443). In 1851 Thomas Moore [R260] died, leaving his property (tract J4) to his children, who no longer lived in Botetourt County. Davis bought them out. In 1852 he acquired the one-sixth share of Thomas E. and Sally (Moore) Wood (Bath County DB31-406); in 1855 four other devisees (John W. and Mary Moore, Joseph M. and Amanda Moore, Mary Ann (Moore) and Alexander Logan, and Clarinda Moore), who were living in the Mingo W.Va. area, sold him their shares in one deed (Randolph County DB33-328).
(WPA Report No. 293 for Alleghany County says Davis’s father owned property in that County, NW of Glen Wilton, until 1837 and makes the highly improbable claim that Davis M. Wood lived there until 1857; see [R253].)
The couple lived through the hard years of the Civil War. Their son James Archelius Wood [R256] fought in the Confederate Army, and survived the war. Two letters that Sarah wrote in 1861 to her sister Demarius Reynolds [see R265], who apparently lived in Amherst County, are held by [S083]. One describes a heart-breaking conjunction of events— widespread disease and death in the area, in the form of typhoid fever contracted by local men in the Gauley Mountain area, West Virginia, when they drove teams there to deliver supplies to the Confederate Army; loss of many farmers’ horses and wagons when they were commandeered by the Confederate Army; and a period of record-breaking rain and flooding. Because of its length, this letter appears as [R910]. The other letter, not reproduced, touchingly describes the last days and hours of Sarah’s brother William as he died of typhoid fever. He had been one of the teamsters infected at Gauley Mountain.
In 1877 Davis gave 65 acres of land, including Island land, jointly to his two oldest sons James Archelius Wood and Davis Miller Wood (DB39-171). I have not attempted to plot these or later tracts: it becomes more and more complicated as the land is split down among multiple heirs.
Rev. Davis Miller Wood was a circuit rider. (The deeds create confusion by referring to him as “Davis M. Wood, Jr.” in spite of the fact that he had a different middle name than his father.) He married H. Helen __ . They had at least one daughter, Helen Davis Wood (deceased as of 6/1907). Davis Miller died in 1889, his wife in 1908; they are buried at Epiphany Church in Danville Va. In 1902, H. Helen Wood sold 25 acres of land north of Wood’s Island, the so-called “Jimmy Field,” to Davis’s older brother James Archelius Wood (DB60-426). In her will she bequeathed her remaining land to Davis’s youngest brother, Robert Reynolds Wood (above; WB1-272). From him the land passed to his daughter Annette, who deeded it to Robert B. and Mary Wood Jarrett in 1940.
In 1880, Davis Morton Wood conveyed 150 acres of land, north of the River, to his wife Sarah in return for a loan of $2000 in gold she made to him in 1859 (DB40-130). In 1897, he conveyed to her three other tracts, probably the remainder of his holdings: the 56-acre “home tract” he inherited from his father; 450 acres that had earlier belonged to his brother Thomas; and 100 acres in the vicinity of the iron ore workings near the Alleghany County border (DB56-148).
In 1902 Sarah divided this land among five devisees, reserving profits and rents on the land for herself while she lived (however, at this point her husband Davis was also still living; Fig. R255b) (DB57-396). The devisees were son George C. Wood of Huntington W.Va.; daughter Lucy E. Cary, then living with her parents; daughter Lelia D. Price of Bedford County Va.; son William E. Wood, then living with his parents; son Robert R. Wood of Huntington W.Va.; and John N. Franklin, a resident farm hand.
In late 1904, Davis Morton Wood (85) was kicked by a horse (Fig. R255c). As a result of this trauma he contracted pneumonia, and died of it. Sarah survived him by another seven years.
