From Slavery to Linworth: Excerpts from Recollections by Harry A. Gentry

This issue of the Linworth Historical Society newsletter highlights the story of Charles and Mary Davidson, who were among the early African American families who settled in Linworth. This story was shared by Lois J. Gentry, whose husband Harry A. Gentry was the grandson of Charles Davidson. Mr. Charles Davidson (b. 1854, d. 1937) grew up on a plantation near Tazwell, Virginia. How he ever got to the Blue Ridge Mountains in Southern West Virginia is not known, but there he met and married Mary Angeline Gore (b. 1860, d. 1952) who also was born into slavery. The Davidsons traveled north to Columbus, Ohio, and eventually came to live on a farm in Linworth. Here, Charles raised corn, wheat, and soybeans. He was a sharecropper on a farm owned by Linworth Store keeper and Postmaster Ike Deardorf. A section of an 1870's map on page two of this newsletter shows the location of the farm. Page two of the newsletter also includes a photograph and brief description of the home of the Elisha Hard family, one of Linworth's historic homes, built in 1841 and razed in 2002.