Warren Davis

Warren Davis

DAVIS, son of Owen Warren and Lovey Davis, was born, December 21, 1842, at Great Falls, now Somersworth, New Hampshire. He fitted for college at the Great Falls High School, and entered our Class in 1859, but left at the close of Freshman year on account of ill health. In college, Davis represented our Class as one of the directors of the Wide Awake Club, a college political (Republican) organization of one hundred and fifty members in the interest of the 1860 presidential campaign that resulted in the election of Lincoln. After a year's rest, Davis entered Bowdoin in the Class of '64. In June, 1862, he enlisted in the Seventh Squadron, Rhode Island Cavalry, Company B, made up of students of Dartmouth College. He saw service in the Shenandoah Valley and was taken prisoner at the surrender of Harpers Ferry just previous to the battle of Antietam, and paroled. His squadron's three months' term of enlistment having expired, Davis returned to Bowdoin and was graduated in 1864.

After graduation, Davis was engaged in the grain and flour business at Great Falls until 1869, when he went to New York in the employ of a Pennsylvania Coal Mining Company and was made manager the following year. In 1872, he moved to Maine and purchased the Katahdin Charcoal Iron Company at Katahdin Iron Works, Maine. He managed this property till 1887 and built the Katahdin Iron Works Railroad, twenty miles in length, and was its first president, living during this time in Bangor, Maine. In 1889, Davis removed to Middlesborough, Kentucky, and engaged in coal mining and coke making. He organized the Mingo Mountain Coal and Coke Company, and became vice-president; also the Fork Ridge Coal Company and served as its president. In 1896, Davis removed to New York, where he has since been engaged in various branches of the coal and iron business, and is now interested in the Secaucus Iron Company, manufacturing pig iron in New Jersey, also in various ore mines in New Jersey and Alabama. He resides in Brooklyn, New York.

In 1870, Davis married Abbie Gould, daughter of Hon. A. P. Gould, of Thomaston, Maine. They have eight children.

1. Albert G. Davis, born 1871. He is a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and now manager of the Patent Department of the General Electric Company, Schenectady, New York. In 1898, he married Miss Agnes Shaw, of Washington, D. C., and has one child, a daughter.

2. Owen Davis, born 1873. A special student at Harvard University, Class of 1894; now a playwright and manager of the Grand Opera House, Philadelphia. In 1901, he married Miss Iza Breyer and has a son.

3. Bessie Davis, born in 1878, and married, in 1903, to Arthur Buck, assistant to Albert G. Davis, of the General Electric Company.

4. Harry Palmer Davis, born in 1878. In the iron business and manager of an iron ore mine in Alabama.

5. William H. Davis, born in 1880. A graduate of Columbia Law School, Washington, D. C., and is now an examiner in the United States Patent Office, Washington, D. C.

6. Robert Davis, born in 1881. He is second lieutenant, United States Coast Artillery, and stationed at Fort Banks, Boston Harbor.

7. Mary Davis, born in 1883. She is a graduate of Brooklyn Heights Seminary, Brooklyn, New York.

8. Perley Davis, born 1884. She is a student at Brooklyn Heights Seminary, Brooklyn, New York.

We note from this report that our short time classmate has been all the years since he left us a busy man, engaged for the most part in one of our country's largest and most important industries. Davis writes in a personal letter, "You will see that if nothing else I have to my credit the bringing up of a large family of boys and girls who are doing their share in the world's work, and are such as the future of the Republic rests upon." A record and a family to be proud of!

Source: Class of Sixty-Three Williams College Fortieth Year Report, by the Class Historian, Thomas Todd Printer, Boston, 1903