John Anthony Gardner Davis was born on March 5, 1802, in Middlesex County and was the son of Staige Davis, a merchant and farmer, and Elizabeth Macon Gardner Davis. He attended the College of William and Mary during the 1819–1820 term and married Mary Jane Terrell, a grandniece of Thomas Jefferson, in Williamsburg on June 14, 1821. They had five sons (one of whom died in infancy) and three daughters. After being admitted to the bar in 1822, Davis briefly returned to Middlesex County, but by 1824 he had moved his young family to Albemarle County. There he attended the University of Virginia in 1825, established a legal practice, and purchased 148 3/4 acres just east of Charlottesville, on which he constructed a Georgian mansion. He cofounded a newspaper, the