Laurens County GaArchives Biographies.....Knox, Robert H. 1862 - living in 1913
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 October 15, 2004, 6:45 pm

Author: William Harden
p. 725-726

   GEORGE B. DAVIS. Let the man who is discouraged or feels that things are
going hard with him and that luck is against him listen to the story of courage
and steadfast determination as revealed in the life of George B. Davis, at
present one of the ablest attorneys in Dublin, Georgia, and county solicitor.
The same determination to succeed which showed itself in so marked a degree in
his efforts to obtain an education, has been one of the characteristic elements
in his success in the legal profession. Gifted with the power of clear and
logical reasoning, and spendthrift as to the time and energy which he expends in
working up a case to his satisfaction, his success has not been a surprise to
those who know him best. He has been in practice in Dublin for only eight years
and this is scarcely long enough to judge a man, but according to all who know
him and particularly according to his brother lawyers, he is a man from whom
great things are to be expected, not only in his own profession but in the
political field.

  George B. Davis was born in Montgomery county, Georgia, on the 19th day of
March, 1881, his parents being Isham J. and Delilah Davis. His father was born
in 1841 in Montgomery county and his mother was a native of Laurens county,
Georgia. His father was a veteran of the Civil war, having served in Company P
of the Forty-eighth Georgia Regiment throughout the whole of the war. He was not
a wealthy man and was unable to give his son much of an education, partly on
account of his poverty and party because of the scarcity of good schools in this
section during the years when the lad was growing up. However, George Davis had
made up his mind that he would become a lawyer, and when his mind has once been
made up to a thing nothing less than a stick of dynamite would turn him from his
purpose. Undaunted, therefore, by the discouragement he met from his family, he
determined to consult a man whom he considered an authority, and coming to
Savannah, Georgia, unfolded his plan to Donald Clark, only to be laughed at for
his pains. Mr. Clark told him he could do nothing without an education and that
the best thing for him to do was to go back to the woods and spend the rest of
his life cutting trees and boxing them for turpentine. Indignant at the way his
confidence had been received he turned away, saying nothing but making up his
mind then and there that he would succeed in spite of everything. He therefore
stopped on his way home and purchased a Blackstone and returned to the farm,
apparently carrying out Mr. Clark's advice, for he set to work cutting trees the
next day. At night after his work was done, however, he spent many a weary hour
poring over his law books and by 1903, when he was twenty-two years of age, he
had saved up enough money to enter Mercer University, at Macon, Georgia, That he
had prepared himself very thoroughly and that he was a really brilliant student,
is shown by the fact that he was graduated from this institution in a year. He
was admitted to the bar on the 9th of June, 1904, and commenced practice on the
1st of September, 1904, locating at Dublin, Georgia, where he opened an office.
His sole capital for this venture was a dollar and a half in cash and one shirt
and two collars. He did not starve before he had his first client but he was not
far from it. After the struggle of the first few months his ability began to be
commented upon and he was presently on the high road to success, he being
employed in and conducting some of the most important cases, criminal and civil,
in that section of the state. He practiced until 1910, when he determined to
enter the political field, and as a candidate for county solicitor conducted a
personal campaign such as had not been seen in years, so energetic and earnest
was the young politician. He won the coveted honor and is serving at present,
his term expiring in 1914.

   Mr. Davis is keenly interested in fraternal orders, believing that they are
enabled to accomplish a great deal of good. He is a member of the Masonic order,
belonging to the blue lodge and to the Eastern Star. He is also a member of the
Knights of Pythias and of the Woodmen of the World. He is also a member of the
Baptist church. When we consider that Mr. Davis is of Welsh and Scotch-Irish
descent, we can easier understand some of the strong points of his character,
for the Scotch-Irish who settled in the "up-country" of the South Atlantic
states, were the very bone and sinew of the country. Much of his personal
popularity is due to his open-hearted generosity, for every one is "kin" to him
and he clings to the old southern ideals of hospitality. He is of the same
family as the Calhouns and the Wests, who came to this country with Oglethorpe
and located in the Carolinas in the early days. They have played an important
part in the history of the section from colonial days down to the present.

   In 1905, on the 29th of November, Mr. Davis Avas married to Anna Lizzie
Bynum, a daughter of John L. Bynum, a prominent citizen of Columbia county,
Georgia, well known there in business, as well as in other lines of endeavor.
Mrs. Davis is a graduate of La Grange Female College at La Grange, Georgia. One
daughter and one son have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Davis, Elizabeth and George
Bynum by name, and their births occurred in Dublin in 1906 and 1912, respectively.


Additional Comments:
A HISTORY OF SAVANNAH AND SOUTH GEORGIA
BY
WILLIAM HARDEN

VOLUME II
ILLUSTRATED
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK
1913

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