Henry G. Davis

Henry G. Davis

Henry Gassaway Davis (born November 16, 1823 in Woodstock , Howard County , Maryland , † March 11, 1916 in Washington DC ) was an American businessman and politician who represented the state of West Virginia in the US Senate . In the 1904 presidential election , he was the Democratic candidate for vice president .

Economic rise

Henry Davis worked on a farm until 1843 before he found employment as a brakeman and conductor on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad . The company later made him run the railway station in Piedmont , West Virginia; There he was also active in mining and banking. His political career began in 1865 when he was elected to the West Virginia House of Representatives .

The following year Davis founded the Potomac and Piedmont Coal and Railway Company, a railway company that primarily served its own business interests by transporting coal and wood. The company has been approved to build railroad tracks in Mineral , Grant , Tucker and Randolph Counties.

Politicians and entrepreneurs

Davis advanced his political career in the following years. In 1869 he became a state senator in West Virginia, and two years later he became a US senator. He spent two full terms in Washington in office before renouncing another candidacy in 1882. During his time in Congress , he chaired the Committee on Appropriations .

After leaving the Senate, Davis returned to West Virginia, where he was again active in banking and mining in Elkins . His company had a total of 550 square kilometers of land, employed 1,600 workers from 16 countries, operated two power plants and nine mines. In 1892, the Davis Coal and Coke Company , which Davis ran with his son-in-law, US Senator Stephen Benton Elkins , was one of the largest coal companies in the world.

In 1889 and 1901, Henry Davis participated as a US delegate at the respective Pan American conferences. Eventually, in 1904, he was elected a Democratic candidate for Vice President alongside Alton B. Parker . However, neither stood a chance against Republican incumbent Theodore Roosevelt and his running mate Charles W. Fairbanks . At 80, Davis is still the oldest vice presidential candidate ever to be elected by either party.

In the last few years of his life, Davis served as chairman of the Pan American Railway Committee . He also made part of his property in Elkins available to have the Davis and Elkins College , named after him and his son-in-law, built there. He died in Washington in 1916. His younger brother Thomas was also a politician and sat for West Virginia in the US House of Representatives from 1905 to 1907 .

Web links

Commons : Henry G. Davis  - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files

• Henry G. Davis in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• Henry G. Davis in the database of Find a Grave (English)