John James Davis

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John James Davis

John James Davis (born May 5, 1835 in Clarksburg , Virginia , † March 19, 1916 there ) was an American politician . Between 1871 and 1875 he represented the first constituency of the state of West Virginia in the US House of Representatives .

Career

John Davis was born in 1835 in Clarksburg, which at that time still belonged to the state of Virginia and only came to the newly established state of West Virginia in 1863. He attended the North Western Virginia Academy in Clarksburg and then studied law at the Lexington Law School , which became today's Washington and Lee University . After his admission to the bar in 1856, he began working in his new profession in his hometown of Clarksburg. In 1861 he was elected to the Virginia House of Representatives.

Davis was a supporter of the Union and thus against Virginia leaving the United States. After the majority of the delegates decided to resign at a congress, the citizens of the western provinces loyal to the Union formed to found a new state. Davis was a member of the movement's first convention, held on April 22, 1861. In June 1861 he was a delegate to another conference in Wheeling which pursued the same goal. In 1863 the union-loyal state of West Virginia was founded.

Davis became a member of the Democratic Party , whose Democratic National Conventions he attended in 1868, 1876 and 1892. Between 1869 and 1870 he was a member of the West Virginia House of Representatives . In 1870 he was elected to the US House of Representatives in Washington in the first district of the state . There he took over from Republican Isaac H. Duval on March 4, 1871 . After a re-election in 1872, he was able to complete two terms in Congress until March 3, 1875 . In 1874, he decided not to run again.

After serving in Congress, Davis returned to practice as a lawyer. In 1884 he was one of the electors for Grover Cleveland in the presidential election . John Davis died on March 19, 1916 in Clarksburg, the town of his birth.

Web links

  • John James Davis in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)