Captain Charles Gobin’s Company
One compilation cites a Daniel Davis as a private in Captain Charles Gobin’s Company, Sixth Battalion, Berks County Militia, under Colonel Joseph Hiester in 1780.
← Daniel Davis Sr.’s profile
Open questions · conflicting claims · unproven identifications
Needs Further Research
This room preserves claims that are interesting enough to investigate, but too conflicting, internally inconsistent, or speculative to place in Daniel Davis Sr.’s accepted biography or timeline.
Important distinction
Nothing on this page should be repeated as established family history. These are research problems—not conclusions. They remain separated from the main profile until stronger evidence resolves them.
Unresolved claim group 01
Competing Revolutionary War identities.
Later compilations associate several military entries with Daniel, but they do not yet prove that every entry concerns the same man.
Captain John Marshall’s Company
A family-news account reportedly found a Daniel Davis on a roll dated 8 September 1778 for Captain John Marshall’s Company, Second Pennsylvania Regiment.
A third service description
The secondary transcription of Daniel’s 1845 declaration instead describes an enlistment on 4 July 1778 and names a “10th Regiment” with different officers. Until the original file and rolls are compared, these identities should not be combined.
Unresolved claim group 02
An internally inconsistent battle narrative.
The pension transcription contains useful clues, but at least one chronological problem prevents it from being treated as a reliable service chronology.
The transcription also contains difficult or possibly corrupted place names such as “Skout Point” and “Trap Fort.” These may reflect handwriting, transcription, or memory errors. The archive will not silently repair them without the original pages.
Unresolved claim group 03
Benjamin Davis and the steamboat disaster.
The story has an intriguing occupational match, but the name and location evidence do not securely identify Daniel’s son.
Benjamin, a steamboat cook
A family account says Benjamin hired on as a cook, died when a steamboat exploded at or near the Louisville landing, and was never heard from again.
“Ben Dans,” first cook
A later researcher connected the story to the Blue Ridge disaster at Gallipolis, Ohio, on 8 January 1848. A victim list reportedly names “Ben Dans,” first cook, and suggests that handwritten “Davis” might have been misread.
Why it stays off the family timeline
The surname does not match, the reported locations differ, and the proposed handwriting error has not been demonstrated from the original casualty list. A matching occupation alone is not enough to identify the victim as Benjamin Davis.
Dates held back
Conflicting vital dates remain unresolved.
The secondary compilations alternate between 1744 and 1746 for Daniel’s birth and between 1846 and 1848 for his death. They also contain assumed marriage and child-birth dates. None of those alternatives has been promoted to the main profile.
Archive rule
When sources disagree, the public biography keeps an approximate date or explicitly marks the question open. A precise date will be added only when the underlying evidence can be examined and reconciled.
How this page should grow
Preserve the question alongside the answer.
When new evidence arrives, each claim can be updated with a short finding: confirmed, disproved, or still unresolved. This keeps discarded theories from disappearing while preventing them from being mistaken for facts.