Dorchester Illustration World War One Service Member biography: William Wallace Davis
At the Dorchester Historical Society, we are in the process of a year-long project to commemorate the 100th anniversary of World War I. Using a collection of photographs we have of WWI Dorchester residents, we will be featuring servicemen in a number of short biographies throughout the year. At the culmination of the project, we hope to produce an online exhibit that highlights these men and their service to our country.
Our next biography features: William Wallace Davis.
Written by Julie Wolf.
William Wallace Davis was born in Dorchester on December 16, 1889, the youngest child of Maine natives John Allen Davis and Mary Starr Stockbridge. Their first daughter was stillborn in 1880, a year after they married in Medway, MA; daughter Marjorie Merriam was born in 1884. William’s mother had deep roots in colonial America; in Maine since at least the 1750s, several lines of her family had emigrated from England to Massachusetts by the mid-1600s. Although he bore the name of the famed Scottish independence leader, William Wallace’s maternal ancestry traces back not to Scotland but to princes and kings of Dark Ages Ireland and Wales.
Since birth, William and his family had lived at 45 Cedar Street, a home his father owned. Although John had been a farmer at the time of his marriage, by the time his son was born, he was a fireman at the Baker Chocolate Factory and would continue there through at least 1900, when the census was taken. By the 1910 census, the household had expanded to include three Canadian boarders, young women working as Baker mill hands. William’s father was then a watchman at the factory, a position he held through at least 1926, and William, age 20, was a house painter. The 1910 Boston city directory, however, identified William as a clerk.
William registered for the World War I draft on June 5, 1917. Although he gave his residence as Bridgton, Maine, no house number or street name is included, and most subsequent records show his address as Dorchester, sometimes designated as Mattapan. (Years later, in the 1927 Bridgton city directory, his parents were listed as summer residents on Pond Street, and the 1930 census found them living in the town full-time, but no similar details were available for William’s whereabouts at the time of his registration.) William gave his age as 28 but his birth date as December 16, 1888, a year earlier than the date of record. Tall, slender, single, and lacking a “present trade,” he claimed no dependents, but he did claim an exemption from the draft, considering himself “disabled” on account of his “weak lungs.”
His claim wasn’t honored, and on July 26, 1918, he enlisted in the U.S. Army at Westbrook, Maine, reporting afterward to Camp Devens in Harvard, MA. He was assigned to 45th Company, 12th Battalion of the 151st Depot Brigade until August 5. Depot brigades were responsible for training replacements for the American Expeditionary Forces and processing new draftees. He went on to serve as a mechanic with Company H of the 42d Infantry. (The VA Master Index indicates that he served with Company C.)
That fall, in the midst of the deadliest war in modern human history in terms of military and civilian casualties, the deadliest pandemic in modern human history struck: the Influenza Pandemic of 1918. Its global spread was accelerated not only by the massive number of troops being deployed worldwide, but by the crowded conditions in which the troops lived. Toward the end of that summer, overrun with vast numbers of soldiers destined for U.S. military camps on their way overseas, Boston became a prime breeding ground for the disease. Camp Devens, about 40 miles away and housing some 50,000 soldiers awaiting departure to France, was particularly hard hit in terms of victims, and was unfortunately a notable contributor to the spread of the ferocious flu strain.
The statistics surrounding the influenza pandemic and its impact on the U.S. military were staggering. According to a report published in the official journal of the U.S. Surgeon General, “By the War Department’s most conservative count, influenza sickened 26% of the Army—more than one million men—and killed almost 30,000 before they even got to France.” The New England Historical Society and Boston Globe provided local figures comprising those daunting numbers. By Sept. 23, Camp
Devens alone had reported between 10,500 and 11,000 cases of flu.
William was one of those Camp Devens cases, one of those soldiers who never made it overseas. Records include him among the 70 or so men to die in camp on Sept. 24, only one of whom died from something other than pneumonia, the cause of death assigned in flu fatalities. (All told that week, Camp Devens lost 438 soldiers to the pandemic.) The very next day, reports noted that new influenza cases at Devens were on the decline, and by mid-October, the pandemic had begun to subside across Massachusetts.
Mechanic William Wallace Davis, age 28, was buried at Dorchester’s Cedar Grove Cemetery. The following words are inscribed on his card in Dr. Perkins’s World War I Photo Collection: “He served well until the call came for the service beyond.”
SOURCES:
American Experience: Influenza 1918: The Flu in Boston.
Ancestry.com. 1900 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2004.
Ancestry.com. 1910 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2006.
Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.
Ancestry.com. 1930 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2002.
Ancestry.com. Maine, Military Index, 1917-1920 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2000.
Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, Birth Records, 1840-1915 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013.
Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, Marriage Records, 1840-1915 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013.
Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.
Ancestry.com. U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.
Ancestry.com. U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc., 2005.
Byerly, Carol R. “The U.S. military and the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919.” Public Health Reports (Washington, D.C.: 1974), vol. 125, Suppl 3, Suppl 3 (2010): 82-91.
“Camps Have 20,211 Cases of Influenza: Disease at 25 Posts, With Devens Hit Hardest.” Boston Globe, September 24, 1918: 2.
Dr. Perkins WWI Photo Collection.
FamilySearch Family Tree, William Wallace Davis.
FamilySearch. Maine, State Archive Collections, 1718-1957, database with images.
FamilySearch. Massachusetts Deaths, 1841-1915, database with images,
FamilySearch. United States, Veterans Administration Master Index, 1917-1940, database.
Farnam, Charles H. History of the Descendants of John Whitman of Weymouth, Mass. (New Haven, CT: Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor, Printers, 1889), 207.
“Grippe on Decline at Camp Devens: Death List of 60 Shows Big Decrease.” Boston Globe, September 27, 1918: 14.
List of Authorized Abbreviations: World War I Service Discharge Cards.
Maine State Documents. “Record of War Deaths in World War I” (2017). Personnel. 1.
“More Optimistic at Camp Devens: Good Progress in Checking Influenza Epidemic.” Boston Globe, September 26, 1918: 14.
Official U.S. Bulletin, vol. 2, no. 430, Oct. 5, 1918, 15.
Selective Service Regulation (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1917), 157.
“The 1918 Flu Epidemic Kills Thousands in New England.” New England Historical Society.
“When Fort Devens was ground zero of flu pandemic,” Telegram.com, November 5, 2006.
Wikipedia. 152d Depot Brigade (United States).