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History and Government—Congressional Biographies—West VirginiaDAVIS, Henry Gassaway
(1823—1916)
Senate Years of Service:
1871-1883
Party:
Democrat
DAVIS, Henry Gassaway, (brother of Thomas Beall Davis and grandfather of Davis Elkins), a Senator from West Virginia; born near Woodstock, Howard County, Md., November 16, 1823; attended the country schools; worked on a farm until 1843; employed by the Baltimore Ohio Railroad Co. for fourteen years as brakeman and conductor, and later had charge of the Piedmont terminal and shops; commenced the banking business and the mining of coal at Piedmont, W.Va., in 1858; engaged in railroad building and in the lumber business; elected to the house of delegates of West Virginia in 1865; member, State senate 1868, 1870; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1871; reelected in 1877 and served from March 4, 1871, to March 3, 1883; declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1882; chairman, Committee on Appropriations (Forty-sixth Congress); settled in Elkins, Randolph County, W.Va., where he resumed his banking and coal mining interests; represented the United States at the Pan American conferences of 1889 and 1901; unsuccessful candidate for Vice President of the United States on the Democratic ticket in 1904; chairman of the permanent Pan American Railway Committee 1901-1916; died in Washington, D.C., on March 11, 1916; interment in Maplewood Cemetery, Elkins, W.Va.
Bibliography
American National Biography
; Dictionary of American Biography
; Ross, Thomas Richard. Henry Gassaway Davis: An Old-Fashioned Biography
. Parsons, WV: McClain, 1994; Williams, John Alexander. “Davis and Elkins of West Virginia: Businessmen in Politics.” Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1967.
Caruso, John A. “Henry Gassaway Davis and the Pan American Railway.” Ph.D. dissertation, West Virginia University, 1949.
Pepper, Charles Melville. The Life and Times of Henry Gassaway Davis, 1823-1916
. New York: Century Co., 1920.
Ross, Thomas Richard. Henry Gassaway Davis: An Old-Fashioned Biography
. Parsons, W.VA: McClain, 1994.
Williams, John Alexander. “Davis and Elkins of West Virginia: Businessmen in Politics.” Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1967.
Williams, John Alexander. “The Final Confrontation of Henry G. Davis and William L. Wilson in the Election Campaign of 1894.” West Virginia History
32 (October 1970): 1-9.
Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
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