We, The G. C. and France Hawley Museum® have put together two articles in order to bring to you information about Harriet Tubman and her second husband Nelson Davis. We have added it to this gallery pertaining to NC because her second husband had been enslaved by the Charles family in Elizabeth City, NC until he self-emancipated, probably through the Underground Railroad.

When she was born early in 1822, she was given the name Araminta Ross—her mother usually used an affectionate nickname, Minty. When Minty changed her name before her self-emancipating from slavery, it was her mother’s given name, Harriet, that she assumed to honor her. The ‘Tubman’ portion of her name came from the man she married in 1844, John Tubman, a free Black man who lived near Harriet’s owner’s plantation.

Even as Harriet was determined to free her people, she would earn several other nicknames along the way—abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison called Tubman ‘Moses’, while John Brown would refer to her as ‘General Tubman’.
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HARRIET TUBMAN
Historical Society
Life After The Civil War

When the Civil War ended on April 9, 1865 Harriet Tubman returned home to Auburn, New York. Her parents were old and had a good support system during her absence but they still needed her daughter’s financial support. Her brothers and their families eventually moved from St. Catharine’s to Auburn. Her parents passed away of old age. Her father died in 1871 and her mother in 1880.

Tubman was a philanthropist who provided to those who sought her help. She left the door of her residence, at South Street , open for those who needed shelter and food. For years freed slaves came and left when they were ready to move on. She took care of all their needs even though she was penniless. She supported herself and those she sheltered by selling produce from her garden, taking in donations of food and asking friends for loans. She also raised pigs in her backyard.

In 1867 Tubman received the news of the death of her former husband, John Tubman. He had been killed in an altercation with a white man named Robert Vincent. He was never convicted. Harriet was never "legally" married to John, as was the custom with a marriage license, because it was against the law for enslaved Black people to be married in that custom way. Theirs was an "informal" marriage just like all others who were enslaved .

In 1869 Tubman met Nelson Davis, a man who had looked for shelter in her home. He had been enslaved in North Carolina and served as a soldier in the Civil War. Davis was a brick maker. Tubman and Davis married on March 18, 1869 at the Presbyterian Church in Auburn. In 1874 they adopted a girl who they named Gertie. Davis suffered from Tuberculosis and could not hold a steady job, leaving Harriet responsible for the household. Their marriage lasted 20 years. Davis died in 1888 probably from Tuberculosis.

Harriet Tubman Home for the Elderly
Tubman showed special concern for the old. Few social services were available to them and they were too old to make a living. In 1896 Tubman acquired in auction 25 acres of land adjacent to her property, located at 130 South Street. With money raised by the AME Zion Church and with the support of a local bank, Harriet was able to afford such an acquisition. Her dream was to build a house for the aged colored people. Her winning bid was $1450.

In 1903 she decided to donate the property to the AME Zion Church with the condition that it would be maintained as a home for the elderly. The Board of the Lady Managers helped raise funds to equip and staff the home. It took five years for Tubman’s dream to realize. On June 23, 1908 Harriet Tubman Home was inaugurated with Tubman as the guest of honor in the opening celebration.

Following her hospitalization in 1911 she moved out of her house and into the care of the facility next door where she was to spend the rest of her life. In 1913 at the age of 93, Harriet died of pneumonia..
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Life of Harriet Tubman's Husband Intrigues Historians
By Jeff Hampton
THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT |
APR 11, 2009 AT 12:00 AM

An Elizabeth City slave who escaped, most likely through the local Underground Railroad system, and later married famous former slave and abolitionist Harriet Tubman, is the focus of a new search to find details on his life.

Tubman biographer Kate Clifford Larson and local Underground Railroad researcher and advocate Wanda Hunt-McLean are seeking more information about Nelson Davis. They are especially interested in details of his youth as a slave to a Charles family in Elizabeth City.

"It would be great to report his story," Larson said. "He has a great history of his own to document."

Based on a study mandated by Congress, t he National Park Service could establish sites in Auburn, N.Y., and other places associated with Tubman. Later in life, Tubman ran a small farm and a brick -making business in Auburn with Davis, her second husband, Larson said. More details on Davis' life would enhance the history, she said.

Tubman escaped slavery in Maryland in 1849, according to Larson, a history professor at Simmons College in Boston and author of "Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero."

Relying heavily on the Underground Railroad, Tubman helped free at least 70 slaves in the 1850s and 1860s, often risking her own life, according to Larson's research. She served as a nurse, cook, teacher, scout and spy for the Union forces during the Civil War. In 1863, Tubman led an armed raid under the command of Gen. James Montgomery against Confederates in South Carolina that helped free 700 slaves.

Tubman and her first husband, John Tubman, were separated after she escaped to freedom. He was already free. By the time she returned, he had remarried. He was later killed in a dispute.

In 1869, Tubman married Davis after meeting him at her boarding house in Auburn, Larson said.

They ran a 7-acre farm and brick business. Davis died of tuberculosis in 1888.

Davis was a slave in Elizabeth City when he likely escaped through the Underground Railroad in about 1861, possibly on the Pasquotank River and the Great Dismal Swamp, Larson said.

Before his escape, it is believed, he was known as Nelson Charles and worked as a slave for a Charles family in Elizabeth City.

He changed his name to Davis, his father's last name, after he escaped.

Census records of 1850 show a George Charles with 22 slaves, including two males ages 5 and 6, about the age of Davis at the time.

Larson said Davis served as a Union soldier who fought in several battles before being discharged in Texas at the end of the Civil War.

Larson and Hunt-McLean are attempting to find more documentation of Davis or Tubman in North Carolina, Hunt-McLean said. Among other efforts, they plan to search records at Livingstone College in Salisbury, founded by Joseph Price, an African American from Elizabeth City.

Hunt-McLean was instrumental in getting the Pasquotank River and the Great Dismal Swamp listed with the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.

Davis' connection to Tubman will add notoriety to local sites, she said.

Source: Myths & Facts About Harriet Tubman- https://www.nps.gov/.../MD_TubmanFactSheet_MythsFacts_2.pdf

Source: https://www.pilotonline.com/.../article_ac292748-a811...

Source: http://www.harriet-tubman.org/after-the-civil-war/