​Noah Davis, from our latest book - Ministers of the Philadelphia Baptist Association, 1707-1872

Noah Davis: b. July 28, 1802, near Salisbury, Md.; d. July 15, 1830, Phila., Pa.; received a common school education; engaged at age 16 as a merchant’s clerk at Fassitt and Langstroth in Phila.; here he experienced conversion and was baptized by William Staughton (q.v.), July 4, 1819, in the Sansom Street Baptist meetinghouse; he removed to Maryland, where he united with the church at Salisbury; lic. at the age of 17, July 9, 1820, Salisbury, Md.; returned to Phila., where he entered the literary and theological institution under the care of pastor Staughton and Irah Chase (q.v.) at Sansom Street Baptist, Nov. 1820; entered Columbian College, Washington, D.C., 1821, but “his zeal to do something for Christ led him to leave the college in 1823, and to enter upon the work of the ministry at once. While pursuing his studies Mr. Davis preached frequently, and did much good by visiting poor families in the neighborhood, and especially by laboring in a Sunday-school organized for the instruction of the colored people” (Cathcart); m. Mary Young ( -Nov. 29, 1864, Cuthbert, Ga.) of Alexandria, Va., July 10, 1823, “shortly after leaving college;” ord. Dec. 21, 1823, Salisbury, Md.; following a brief ministry at Accomac, Va., 1824, he was invited to become pastor at Cumberland Street Baptist, Norfolk, Va., 1824/5?-late 1826, where he formed the Seamen’s Friend Society to preach the gospel to seamen and compiled a hymnal for the use of sailors; it was owing to his suggestion in Jan. 1824 that the Baptist General Tract Society (later the American Baptist Publication Society) was organized, at Washington, D.C., Feb. 25, 1824; the society was removed to Phila. in Dec. 1826, and at the third annual meeting, held at Fifth Baptist Jan. 3, 1827, John L. Dagg (q.v.) was chosen president, Howard Malcom (q.v.), secretary, and Davis, depository agent, which office he fulfilled until July 15, 1830, when he passed away at the age of 27. His widow was later married to Dagg. “The month of July, in which he was born, in which he was baptized, in which he was ordained [licensed] to the work of the ministry, in which he was married, witnessed his passage from time to eternity” (Brantly). “He lived but a little while on earth, but his faithful labors have been made a blessing to many”―Cathcart’s Baptist Encyclopedia.

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