Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/187

 DAVIS

DAVIS

of James Davis of Virginia and of Henry Myers. He was brought up on his father's farm in Macon county, and was educated at Springfield acad- emy, and Illinois college, Jacksonville. He opened a farm in Macon county, ten miles east of Decatur, in 1850, which he cultivated for many years. He was mar- ried in 1851 to Martha, daughter of the Rev. Joseph Powell of Wisconsin. He re- moved in 1872 to Kansas where he took up a large farm two miles west of Junction City, and ^^(j^ < «r- r \\ immediately became

w^ '/Jf||^^%^ .-^ ^ interested in the ' ' farmers' movement

to secure a measure of protection from monopolies. In 1873 he was elected pres- ident of the first distinctive farmers' conven- tion ever held in Kansas. He joined the grange movement and in February, 1874, was president of the convention that organized the new party. In 1875 he became proprietor and editorial writer on the Junction City Tribune. He also spoke and wrote extensively on economic subjects as correspondent of the journal of the Knights of Labor and other reform mediums. He was elected a representative from the 5th Kansas district in the 52d and 53d congresses by the People's party, serving 1891-95, and was -defeated for the 54th congress with his party. In congr^ss he made able speeches on finance, tariff reform, transpor- tation and the income tax. He was the solitary representative before the senate and house com- mittees, and on the floor of the house to advocate woman suffrage, and he introduced and sup- ported the bill which placed two women on the school board in the District of Columbia. In the 52d congress the bill allowing to the state of Flor- ida a claim amounting to over $567,000 for al- leged services rendered by the Florida militia from 1849 to 1857. in the war against the Seminoles, had passed the senate and had been favorably reported by the house, when Mr. Davis attacked and defeated the bill. It came up again in the 53d congress, with a favorable report from the majority of the committee, but Mr. Davis, in a speech delivered July 27, 1894, killed the bill by reciting the history of the Seminole troubles, the causes of the war, and the injustice of the claim. He published: Napoleon Bonaparte: a Sketch Written for a Purpose ( 1 895) ; Public Oicnersh ip of Railroads ; The Conquest of the Prairies ; The Bank of Venice. He died in Topeka, Ks., in 1901.

DAVIS, John, jurist, was born in Newton, Mass., Sept. 16, 1851; son of Hasbrouck and Martha W. (Stickney) Davis; grandson of Gov. John and Eliza (Bancroft ) Davis, and of Josiah and Elizabeth (Searle) Stickney, and a descend- ant of Dolor Davis, who landed at Plymouth, Mass., toward the end of the 17th century. He was educated in Boston and at the Universities of Heidelberg, Berlin and Paris, and returning to America in 1870 was appointed a clerk in the state department at Washington. In 1872 he was appointed secretary of the agent of the United States before the tribunal of arbitration at Geneva, Switzerland, and later in the same year private secretary to Hamilton Fish, secretary of state. In 1874 he was commissioned clerk of the [court of commissioners of Alabama claims, and was admitted to the bar in the following year, practising his profession in New York city and in Washington, D.C. He was appointed as- sistant counsel for the United States before the French- American claims commission in January, 1881; assistant secretary of state in 1882, and was several times acting secretary of the state in the absence of Secretary Frelinghuysen. At this time he rendered conspicuous service in the speedy settlement of complicated questions aris- ing out of the Chili-Peruvian war. In January, 1885. he was appointed by President Arthur asso- ciate judge of the United States court of claims. He was married Oct. 14, 1875, to Sarah Helen, daughter of Theodore Frelinghuysen, then U.S. senator. He received the honorary degree of A.M. from Harvard in 1891.

DAVIS, John Chandler Bancroft, diplomatist, was born in Worcester, Mass., Dec. 29, 1822; son of Governor John and Eliza (Bancroft) Davis. His mother, who was born Feb. 17, 1791, and died Jan. 24, 1872, was a daughter of the Rev. Aaron Ban- croft of Worcester, Mass., and a direct descendant from Thomas Bancroft of Reading, Mass., the first immigrant. He was graduated from Harvard in 1840, and was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1844 and to the New York bar in 1853. He was secre- tary of legation at London from

August, 1849, to December, 1852, when he re- signed. He served as American correspondent of the London Times, 1854-61. He gave up the