Cynthia Davis

Cynthia Davis is one of those signers about whom we know just enough to be able to make some speculations about why she came to the Seneca Falls convention but not enough to describe her in much detail.

In 1848, Cynthia Fuller Davis was twenty-six years old. She had been born somewhere in New York State. On November 14, 1839, she had married Niles Davis of New Hartford, Connecticut. Perhaps (or perhaps not) Niles Davis was related to the Davis family who were members of the Junius Monthly Meeting of Friends. By 1850, Niles Davis had disappeared, and Cynthia Fuller Davis was living in Waterloo with physician Ansel Fuller and his wife Catherine Fuller, perhaps her brother and sister-in-law. Ansel Fuller was Massachusetts-born, thirty-six years old in 1848, while his wife Catharine was a year younger.

The Fullers lived in Waterloo in 1850, but Ansel, at least, had connections in Seneca Falls. He had once belonged to the Methodist Episcopal Church in Seneca Falls but had been dismissed by letter in April 1841. And on April 5, 1850, he would sign an anti-slavery petition sent to Congress from Seneca Falls.

Cynthia Davis may have gone to the convention with her next-door neighbor, Margaret Jenkins, who was also a signer.

---

Sources:

• Files of Betty Auten.
• 1850 anti-slavery petition.
• 1850 census.
• Junius Monthly Meeting Records, 1815-1863.
• Methodist Episcopal Church Records, 19.

-Judith Wellman, Historian
Historical New York