John A. G. Davis

John Anthony Gardner Davis (March 5, 1802, Middlesex County, Virginia – November 15, 1840, Charlottesville, Virginia) was a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law who was shot to death by a student of the university. Early life Davis, the son of Staige Davis (1775–1813) and Elizabeth Macon (Gardner) Davis (born 1780) of Prospect Hill in Middlesex County, was named John Anthony Gardner Davis after his mother's uncle, Dr. Anthony Gardner. From 1819 to 1820, Davis studied at the College of William and Mary, where the president called him "likely to be the most distinguished man of his time, in Virginia." In 1821, Davis married Mary Jane Terrell (1803–1879), a great niece of Thomas Jefferson.