author
1790–1868
A 19th-century Massachusetts town official best remembered as one of the assessors behind a detailed 1850 valuation of real estate in Acton. His surviving work offers a useful snapshot of local life, landholding, and community history in New England.
Little is firmly documented online about this author beyond local historical and genealogical records, so the safest picture is a modest one. Jonathan B. Davis, usually expanded as Jonathan Billings Davis, was born in Acton, Massachusetts, around 1789 or 1790 and died in 1868.
He is credited alongside Abraham Conant and Nathan Brooks on Valuation of Real Estate in the Town of Acton. November 2, 1850, a record of property assessments in Acton. That book is less a literary work than a civic document, but it has lasting value for readers interested in local history, genealogy, and the everyday economics of a New England town.
Acton historical material also connects him with long-established local families and with West Acton. Because the available sources are sparse and sometimes inconsistent on small details, it is best to remember him as a careful compiler of town records whose work preserves a clear slice of mid-19th-century Massachusetts life.