384 HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS C
three sides of the building are verandas, overlooking a wooded valley, picnic
grounds, tennis courts, and Mallory Springs, source of the hotel’s water supply. _
Many Sportsmen stay at the hotel during the fall while fox hunting and shooting ‘
small game in the surrounding region.
1
In FAIRVIEW, 52.3 m. (175 pop.), is a JEFFERSON DAVIS MONU- . ;
MENT in DAVIS MEMORIAL PARK (L), commemorating the birth- .
place of the man who became the President of the Confederacy. The `
concrete obelisk, in a 20-acre tract, is 351 feet high. At the base is a
room, 20 feet square, containing a bronze tablet and a bas—relief panel
with a life-sized figure of jefferson Davis, the work of Frederick C. f
Hibbard. An elevator carries visitors to the top of the shaft, from Q
which point is a fine view of the surrounding country. The monument, ·
erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, was dedicated in .
1929.
In the park near the monument stands a reproduction of the DAVIS A
CABIN, the two-room log house in which jefferson Davis was born. The  
vestibule of the BETI-IEL BAPTIST CHURCH is the site of the original .
cabin. ‘
jefferson Davis was born on june 3, 1808, the son of a well-to·do
planter. After a brief experience on a Mississippi plantation, the family
returned to Kentucky. The lad was sent to school in Bardstown, later `
entered Transylvania University at Lexington, and after two years be-
came a cadet at West Point Military Academy. After graduation his
commission was signed by john C. Calhoun, then Secretary of War. I
He was a field officer during the Indian wars, notably in a campaign
against Black Hawk. He entered politics, became a presidential elector
(1844); and in 1845 a Representative in Congress from Mississippi.
During the Mexican War, in which he led a Mississippi regiment, he
fought at Buena Vista and Monterey and, on his return, was sent to
the United States Senate.
Though he was primarily a land-owner and his interests were those
of a planter, President Franklin Pierce persuaded him to accept an ap-
pointment as Secretary of War. He had married President Zachary
Taylor’s daughter, who died three months later. Nine years afterward
he married Miss Varina Howell of Natchez, Mississippi.
When the great controversy between the North and the South came
to a head, jefferson Davis, who had long been a Secessionist, was elected
President of the Confederacy virtually by acclamation. He was cap-
tured in Georgia at the close of the War between the States and was _
imprisoned for two years in Fortress Monroe.
After his death in New Orleans in 1889, his birthday was made a
public holiday in most of the Southern States.
Right from Fairview on a dirt road to PILOT ROCK, 11 m., a natural forma-
tion rising 200 feet. From its top the jefferson Davis monument is visible.
The WESTERN STATE HOSPITAL (R), 60.9 m., is one of three institu-
tions for the mentally diseased.