Greene County GaArchives Biographies.....Davison, Charles Clement 1923
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Samuel Taylor Geer http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00016.html#0003769 October 24, 2011, 9:35 am

Baptist Biography, Vol. III 1923
Charles Clement Davison
from: Baptist Biography, Vol. III by Rev. Dr. Balus Joseph Winzer Graham, 
(Atlanta, GA: Index Printing Co., 1923), pp. 102-105:

   Woodville in Greene county, Georgia, is a unique town in having a strong 
Baptist church and not enough people of any other faith to form a church.  It 
is in "Mell's Kingdom" and near Penfield, the former site of Mercer 
University.  People of comfortable property and of strong, intelligent 
personalities are common in the immediate community and section at large.  So 
truly and strongly taught are the people in these parts that even the 
illiterate are of remarkably sound understanding in the doctrines and 
organization and functions of a New Testament church.  Proof plenty there is 
in these village and country churches that the great doctrines of the 
sovereign grace of Jehovah God faithfully preached to His children, make them 
great in Christian character.  They delight to hear the Word preached with the 
words of sound speech and they give no continued hearing to strange doctrines.
   Charles Clement Davison, a son of Charles Clement Davison, Sr., and 
Elizabeth Callahan Davison, was born in Woodville, Greene county, Georgia, 
November 3, 1881.  C. C. Davison, Sr., was a competent business man versatile 
in affairs.  He was a farmer, merchant, miller, post master.  He was a large-
minded Baptist, faithful to his convictions.  He was a good deacon and true.  
Mrs. Davison was a gentlewoman, a wise manager of her affairs and a Christian 
of exceptional parts.  The father and mother together reared their children 
with the view of their taking some good part in the world's affairs and in the 
vision of their taking proper place in the forces of the kingdom.  The Lord 
blessed their industry and economy and Christian conduct with good success in 
accumulating a comfortable property and in rearing a Christian family.
   Charles Davison grew up a normal boy playing a boy's games, doing the 
tiring work to be expected in his father's household, and taking his schooling 
in the Woodville High School.  He passed the teacher's examination after 
completing High School in 1898.  He clerked in Dr. J. G. Wright's drug store, 
Washington, Georgia, 1898-1900.  He was manufacturing pharmacist for Perryman 
and Walters, Atlanta, 1901 and graduated, "Ph.G.," from the Atlanta College of 
Pharmacy, making the highest mark before the Georgia Board of Pharmacy, 1902.  
He served as prescription clerk for Lamar Cheatham and Company, Macon, 
Georgia, 1902-03; as manager Reid's Pharmacy Company, Columbus, Georgia, 1903; 
as manager Shuptrine's Pharmacy, Savannah, Georgia, 1903-05.
   In August, 1897, aged sixteen, he was baptized by Dr. B. F. Riley into the 
fellowship of the Baptist church in Woodville, Georgia.  In 1905, under the 
ministry of Dr. John D. Jordan, he yielded to the call to preach, the first in 
a hundred years in the First Baptist church in Savannah.  The same year he 
entered the Mercer Summer School and graduated A.B. from Mercer University, 
1908, and Th.M. from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1911.  He 
passed the doctor's examination in 1916 with the predicate "Summa cum Laude" 
for Th.D.  His thesis was not completed and submitted, however, until 1922 
when he received the degree of "Doctor in Theology," "Th.D." at the Seminary 
commencement at Louisville, Jefferson Co., KY, May 2nd.
   While carrying his college courses, his versatility was applied to many 
activities earning some money all along and quite all of his Senior year 
expenses.  A member of the Phi Delta Literary Society, he held every office 
except Librarian.  He served as a member of Y.M.C.A. cabinet; Chairman of 
Mission Committee; Secretary and Treasurer the Georgia Student's Missionary 
League, 1907-08; Mercer delegate to the Southern Student's Conference at Farm 
School, North Carolina, 1906; Assistant Business Manager of the Mercerian, 
1906-07; Manager of the Mercerian, 1907-08; Ex-Officio member of the Faculty-
Student Committee; first Sunday school Superintendent the Georgia Industrial 
Home, Macon, 1906-07; delegate to the Student's Volunteer Convention, 
Rochester, New York, 1910-1911; member Student Volunteer Band, 1910-11; member 
Evangelistic Band; Leader the quartette and personal worker at the Louisville 
City Hospital, 1909-10; teacher the Baraca Class at Calvary Baptist Church, 
Louisville, 1908-09.
   Charles Davison's Christian sense of family honor and obligation to his 
home church moved him to be ordained there, while a student in Mercer 
University.  In the Baptist church in Woodville, he was set apart to the 
gospel ministry on his 27th birthday, November 3, 1907, the presbytery 
consisting of John D. Mell who preached the sermon, Wade H. Parks, the pastor, 
and A. A. Fluker.  Deacon Columbus L. Landrum was given a seat in the 
presbytery.  As supply he served the Bluntsville Baptist church, Jones county, 
Georgia, 1906-07; as pastor at Morrow, Georgia, 1907, and 1908 also of White 
Springs church, Wilkinson county, Georgia; Missionary the Houston Association, 
the summer of 1909; pastor Seven Hills church, Owensboro, Kentucky, 1911; 
pastor at Cuthbert, Georgia, 1916-18; camp pastor, "primary man," Camp 
McClellan, Alabama, 1918-19 and pastor at Weaver, Alabama, near the camp; 
associate pastor Parker Memorial church, Anniston, Calhoun Co., AL, 1919-20 
and pastor Leighton Avenue Baptist church.  He became pastor of the First 
Baptist church, Decatur, Alabama, May 1, 1920.
   Charles Davison is apt to teach and is happily esteemed as a good minister 
of Jesus Christ.  His interest and efficiency in Sunday school and B.Y.P.U. 
work have won him a place of large recognition with the brethren.  He is a 
member of the State B.Y.P.U. Executive Committee of Alabama and of the Board 
of Managers of the B.Y.P.U. of America.  He is a good organizer, looking well 
to details, a notably good mixer, a strong, energetic and pleasing New 
Testament bishop.  His efforts in evangelism are of divine approval.
   On December 30, 1915, Charles Clement Davison was married to Elizabeth May 
Gheesling, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Joshua Hillman Gheesling of Greensboro, 
Georgia.  They have four children.  The happiness of the marriage relation of 
this couple of good people is enhance to him as pastor in that "his wife is 
just like other people."

Additional Comments:
Rev. Dr. Charles Clement Davidson, Th.D. (November 3, 1881 - May 17, 1946) was 
born in Woodville, Greene Co., Georgia

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