Georgia and Georgians - the Digital Library of Georgia

3088 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANSwith characteristic efficiency, his assumption of office having occurred on the1st of January 1905, and successive re-elections having indicated the highpopular estimate placed upon his administration of the manifold and exacting affairs of the court of ordinary. In the period of his active practice atthe bar he presented a number of important causes before the Supreme Courtof the state. The judge is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity and theKnights of Pythias.On the 12th of October, 1905, was solemnized the marriage of JudgeButt to Miss Johnnie Miller, the marriage ceremony having been performedin the City of Atlanta. Mrs. Butt was born in Lumpkin, Georgia, and is adaughter of the late John "W. and Sallie (Persons) Miller, her father havingdevoted the major part of his active career to farming. Judge and Mrs.Butt have one child, John Campbell Butt, Jr., who was born in 1906.Noah B. Butt, brother of Judge Butt, was born at the old homestead ofthe family, in Marion County, on the 13th of December, 1886, and after completing the curriculum of the public schools of Buena Vista he began the studyof law under effective private preceptorship and his admission to the barhaving been granted in 1913, by Judge Gilbert, who was presiding on thebench of the Superior Court. He engaged in the practice of his professionat Buena Vista, and in 1912 he was elected justice of the peace, an office whichhe resigned at the time of his removal, in February, 1916, to Lumpkin, StewartCounty, where he is now engaged in successful general practice. He is knownas a well fortified advocate and counselor and is one of the prominent youngermembers of the Stewart County bar, the while he is a stanch advocate ofthe principles of the democratic party, as is also his brother, Judge Butt, ofBuena Vista.DANIEL F. DAVENPORT. Postmaster at Americus, Daniel FrederickDavenport has been identified in a business way with Sumter County for overthirty years, and his family is one of prominence in this section of Georgia.He was born at Amerieus September 8, 1860, a son of Walter T. andMary Elizabeth" (Frederick) Davenport. His great-grandfather was a soldierin the Revolutionary war and for his services was granted a large tract ofland in Virginia. Thomas Davenport, grandfather of D. F. Davenport, wasborn in Halifax County, Virginia, and owned an extensive plantation, whichhe employed chiefly for the growing of tobacco. He served for ten years as amember of Congress from Virginia and was one of the leading men of thatstate.Walter T. Davenport was born in 1817 in Halifax County, Virginia, wasa school teacher in early life, teaching both in Virginia and in Tennessee,and in 1842 he located in Sumter County, Georgia. He was one of the pioneerbusiness men at Amerieus, first engaged in the dry goods and afterwards inthe hardware business and during the war he was commissioned a colonel ofmilitia and performed the additional duties of tithing agent. After the warhe engaged in the insurance business and the drug business, and remaiiftd aresident of Amerieus until his death in 1910. He was a man of sterlingqualities and left a good name for deeds performed in church and state.Walter Davenport married Mary Frederick, who was born in South Carolina,a daughter of Daniel Frederick. Daniel Frederick was one of the pioneerplantation owners in Houston County, Georgia, but afterwards moved toMacon County where he lived to be over eighty years of age. Mary Frederickwas educated at Wesleyan College, and was one of the first to enter that institution. She died in Americus at the age of sixty-three. She was active inthe Methodist Episcopal Church and a woman of benevolence, of fine characterand greatly beloved both in her family and in a large community of friends.The Frederick family was especially prominent in promoting the growingof fruit in their section of Georgia, and Mrs. Mary Frederick Davenport was