John S. Gallaher and William H. Davis

John S. Gallaher, born in Martinsburg, VA, December 1, 1796. He died on February 4, 1877 in Washington, D.C., and is buried in Edge Hill Cemetery at Charles Town, WV. He moved to Richmond in 1835, where he assumed a role as editor of the Richmond Compiler.

William H. Davis may have been born in 1808 and died on April 27, 1870??? This William H. Davis was a coal merchant, and apparently had a son named T. Herbert Davis, who was a captain for the confederacy during the Civil War, enlisting April 21, 1861. The Federal Census for 1850, for Richmond, VA, lists William H. Davis as an editor, age 40, born in Virginia, making his birth year as 1810 or 1811. (The census is dated November 17, 1850. Gideon G. Davis, listed immediately after him, age 14, may be a son.) The 1860 Federal Census, for Richmond, VA, lists W. H. Davis as a coal merchant, and immediately afterwards lists only Sarah E. Davis, aged 28, possibly a daughter-in-law. The Richmond Directory for 1856 lists W. H. Davis & Co. as a dealer in Coal, associated with W. H. Davis and James Davis. Both are listed as early as 1851-1852 in Thomson’s Mercantile and Professional Directory for the States of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, etc., so this listing either establishes a change of occupation or that they are different men of the same name and living in the same city. Just about this time, W. H. Davis seems to have ceased to be an editor,