He left the plantations in 1862 during the American Civil War, but they continued to operate under Union direction, as well as to house black soldiers and refugees.

Davis moved to Vicksburg, selling the plantation to Benjamin Montgomery, his former slave who had been an outstanding manager.

[1] Samuel farmed in Georgia, but in 1793 the Davis family (by then consisting of the couple, four sons, and a daughter) set out for the newly formed state of Kentucky, where the land was more promising.

He studied law in Russellville and in Wilkinson County, Mississippi, where he accompanied his father in 1811 to explore the area.

[3] He served as delegate from Jefferson County in the convention that wrote the Mississippi state constitution in 1817.

Davis acknowledged them publicly, arranged for them to be educated, supported them, and brought them to live in his household for periods of time.

Her widowed mother had owned a shoe and boot store in the city, but at the time of the marriage ran a boardinghouse in New Orleans.

Martha Wallace reared her until age 13 when the girl started living in Davis's household.

[7] He was a friend of Margaret Louisa Kempe Howell, whom he had known in his youth, serving as a groomsman at her wedding and accompanying her on a trip to New York.

As a cotton planter Davis made a fortune, becoming "one of the richest men in Mississippi at the onset of the Civil War.

By 1860 at the beginning of the American Civil War, his Hurricane Plantation included 5,000 acres and 5 miles of riverfront.

[5] Davis worked to create a utopian plantation on a paternalistic model, borrowing from industrial ideas of Robert Owen.

[5] Recognizing the intelligence and leadership of Ben Montgomery, a slave, Davis made him an overseer.

When the Union Army gained control of the area, General Ulysses S. Grant decided to make Davis Bend a "negro paradise" and allowed freedmen to lease land, as well as allowing black refugees to settle in the area.

The flooding Mississippi River cut a new channel across the neck of the peninsula, transforming it into the island.

Davis arranged a mortgage for Montgomery, selling him the plantation on a long-term note to make a community of freedmen.

Davis and a granddaughter (born to one of his illegitimate daughters) resided upriver in the city of Vicksburg, from 1868 to his death in 1870.