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Sidney William (Bill) Davis, son of Orange Davis and Adelaide Barlow Davis, born June 11, 1825 at Lower Canada, some six miles south of Montreal. Sidney (Bill) Davis died of chronic nephritis on April 24, 1912 at St. Peter, Minnesota. He was married three times; 1. He married on December 24/27, 1846, Mary O. Pettis, daughter of Colonel Stephen Pettis and Olive Hutchins. 2. He married on April 15, 1852, Amanda Malvina Winship Pierson. 3. He married Lydia Cole in 1875.
Mary Olive Pettis, daughter of Colonel Stephen Pettis and Olive Hutchins, born at Mecca Township, Trumbull Co., Ohio on April 24/28, 1829, died of cholera on July 15, 1851 at Pike County, Illinois. Mary Olive Pettis Davis is buried at the Pettis Cemetery, Newburgh Township, Pike Co., Illinois.
Amanda Malvina Winship Pierson, widow of Allen Pierson, was born in Ohio on September 17, 1830, died on December 14, 1902 at Cumberland, Wisconsin.
Lydia Cole, widow of Sylvanus Cole, was born May 28, 1827 at New Hampshire, died October 4, 1897 at St. Peter, Minnesota.

When Sidney (Bill) Davis was twelve years old, his parents fled from Ontario because of the revolutionary trouble. Attacks had been made on several settlements, and the danger became so imminent that Orange Davis took his family and fled in the night. They crossed the St. Lawrence River in a small boat and spent the winter of 1837-1838 at Sackets Harbor, New York. In 1839 they left New York and emigrated to Pike County, Illinois, locating on a farm near Pittsfield, the county seat. Here Sidney William Davis grew up and married. In 1853, Bill Davis came to Minnesota and pre-empted a claim two miles east of Kasota, Minnesota. He was elected to the first township board on May 11, 1858 -- 68 votes polled. He served with the Le Sueur Co. Tigers, No. 1, under the command of William Dellaughter during the Sioux Uprising. The unit was organized on August 19, 1862 and served until August 27, 1862. Private Sidney William Davis carried government messages between New Ulm and St. Peter; arrows shizzed past him and his horse, but he was never wounded. During this time his family took refuge in the mill on Front Street in St. Peter, Minnesota.

Soon after arriving in Minnesota, he recognized the possiblilities of the livestock business and in 1867 moved to St. Peter and opened a meat market. He shipped and dressed hogs to eastern markets and furnished meat for the State Hospital. During the Civil War he filled large contracts for supplies for the government. Later he sold his meat market and became a member of the Alva Pettis-Bill Davis Livestock Firm.
(From Jessie Livingston's copy of Memorial Record of Southwestern Minnesota, Nellie Davis Wales' and Lydia Thompson's records)
Although it is not mentioned anywhere in Sidney (Bill) Pettises biography, apparently he was divorced from his second wife, Amanda Malvina Winship Pierson. Amanda did not die until 1902 in Cumberland, Wisconsin but Sidney (Bill) Davis married his third wife, Lydia Cole in 1875.