Dear Ken: A good starting place would be the biographical notes on Mary Ann Newcomb (1809-94) and John Davis or Davies (1810?-85) in Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians and Other Unfinished Stories, ed. Dahlia Armon and Walter Blair, Mark Twain Library, University of California Press, 1989, pages 317 and 338-9. The notes indicate that she was born in Vermont and educated in the East before moving to Missouri in 1839. In the 1840s, she married John Davis (which he later changed to Davies), a Welsh teamster who later opened a store selling "books and fancy goods" in Hannibal. The biographical note on Mary Ann Newcomb cites a newspaper article from the Hannibal Evening Courier-Post, 6 March 1935, 12B, which gives more detailed information about her (although it is incorrect about her date of marriage to John Davies): Birthdate: 11 November 1809, Thetford, Vermont. Parents: "John and Mary Curtis Newcomb, who had six sons, four of whom entered the ministry, and three daughters. . . . Her father served in the Revolutionary War. . . . Her mother was of the old Massachusetts Curtis stock. '' Education: "Mary Ann Newcomb was educated at Fredonia, New York, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania." Descendants: The article mentions her daughter, Ruth Davies Watson, and quotes two of her granddaughters, Miss Harriet Newcomb Watson, and Miss Anna B. Watson, who in 1935 lived at 1328 Grace Street, Hannibal. I hope this is of some use to you. Sincerely, Victor Fischer Mark Twain Project