- Horace Davis
Horace Davis (
March 16 ,1831 -July 12 ,1916 ) was aUnited States Representative fromCalifornia . He was the son of Massachusetts Governor John Davis and the younger brother of diplomat John Chandler Bancroft Davis.Davis was born in
Worcester, Massachusetts . He attended the Worcester public schools andWilliams College ,Williamstown, Massachusetts , graduated fromHarvard University in 1849, and then studied law in theDane Law School of Harvard University, but did not engage in professional pursuits by reason of failing eyesight.Davis sailed for
San Francisco, California aroundCape Horn in 1852, and upon arriving, engaged for a brief time as a gold miner, a lumber supercargo surveyor for a coastal steamer, and a purser for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. In addition he helped found the Mercantile Library Association of California (its oldest public library). Under his administrative tutelage interest in the library was restored with his creation of a library catalog (an act which later lead to his poor eyesight). He resigned in 1855 and relocated to San Francisco in 1860 at which time he established the highly successful Golden Gate Flouring Mills and the Sperry Flour Company. When theAmerican Civil War broke out, he served in the secretive San Francisco-basedHome Guard acting to secure both the loyalty of California to then Union PresidentAbraham Lincoln and the election ofLeland Stanford as governor of California (by patrolling the polls on election day). He presided over the Produce Exchange of San Francisco from 1867 to 1877 until he was elected as a Republican to theUnited States House of Representatives of the Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth Congresses (March 4, 1877 - March 3, 1881), where onJune 8 ,1878 he spoke in support of a bill to restrict Chineseimmigration . He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1880 to the Forty-seventh Congress.After his retirement from the Produce Exchange of San Francisco he presided over both the San Francisco
Chamber of Commerce 1883-1884 and the Savings and Loan Society 1885 and served as a member of theRepublican National Committee 1880-1888. In February, 1888 he was elected president of theUniversity of California , but resigned in April, 1890. He was named president of theboard of trustees ofStanford University by its original founder and served in this capacity from 1885-1916 where he effected its consolidation with the Wilmerding and Lux schools. He served as president of theUniversity of California, Berkeley 1887-1890.Married twice and a devout Unitarian, he contributed to the Unitarian School for the Ministry. He was an active student of history and literature, his most noted work being an essay entitled "American Constitutions". He died after an appendicitis operation in San Francisco in 1916 and was buried in Cypress Lawn Cemetery.
ee also
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Davis political family References
*CongBio|D000105
*Johnson, Allen & Malone, Dumas (ed.'s). "Dictionary of American Biography". vol. III. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, N.Y. 1959.External links
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