Bio of DAVIS, Spencer E. (b.1841 d.1913), Hennepin Co., MN
=========================================================================
USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information
on the Internet, material may be freely used by non-commercial entities,
as long as this message remains on all copied material, AND permission is
obtained from the contributor of the file.
These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or
presentation by other organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to
use this material for non-commercial purposes, MUST obtain the written
consent of the contributor, OR the legal representative of the submitter,
and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent.

If you have found this file through a source other than the MNArchives 
Table Of Contents you can find other Minnesota related Archives at:
http://www.usgwarchives.net/mn/mnfiles.htm
Please note the county and type of file at the top of this page to find 
the submitter information or other files for this county.
FileFormat by Terri--MNArchives

Made available to The USGenWeb Archives by: Laura Pruden
Submitted: June 2003
=========================================================================
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
========================================================
EXTRACTED FROM: History of Minneapolis, Gateway to the Northwest; 
Chicago-Minneapolis, The S J Clarke Publishing Co, 1923; Edited by: Rev. 
Marion Daniel Shutter, D.D., LL.D.; Volume I - Shutter (Historical); 
volume II - Biographical; volume III - Biographical
========================================================

SPENCER E. DAVIS - Vol II, pg 506-509
Minneapolis lost one of her representative manufacturers when on the 4th of
April, 1913, Spencer E. Davis passed away. He had reached the seventy-second
milestone on life's journey, his birth having occurred in Cazenovia, New York,
March 30, 1841, his parents being Edmund and Ada (Curtis) Davis, the former of
Welsh descent. The son obtained his education in the schools of Cazenovia and
when twenty years of age enlisted from Woodstock, New York, for service in the
Union army, becoming a member of the One Hundred and Fourteenth Regiment of New
York Volunteers in 1861. With that command he served until the close of the war,
proving his valor and loyalty on many a southern battle field.
Mr. Davis cast in his lot with the middle west when in 1866 he removed from New
York to Horicon, Wisconsin, and there became superintendent of the May-ville
Iron Works, of which I. M. Bean was the president. In 1870 he entered into
partnership with W. A. Van Brunt under the style of Van Brunt & Davis, the
firm's capital at that time consisting of but thirteen hundred dollars. Success
attended the venture from the beginning and the business was subsequently
incorporated as the Van Brunt & Davis Company, with a capital stock of one
hundred thousand dollars. The business was that of farm implement manufacturing
and was carried on under the name of the Monitor Manufacturing Company. In 1891
Mr. Duvis purchased the interest of Mr. Van Brunt and through the influence of
T. B. Walker removed the plant to St. Louis Park, a manufacturing suburb of
Minneapolis, receiv­ing a bonus from Mr. Walker to make the removal. Here the
business was incor­porated under the name of the Monitor Manufacturing Company,
the capital stock being increased to two hundred thousand dollars. The plant was
erected and equipped with all necessary appliances of the most modern character
and the busi­ness rapidly developed, so that in 1902 another reorganization was
effected under the name of the Monitor Drill Company, while the capital stock
was increased to a million dollars. Mr. Davis continued in active management of
the business until 1908, when he disposed of his interest to the officers of the
Moline Plow Company and thereafter lived practically retired. One of his
biographers has said concerning his business career: "Mr. Davis took a great
deal of pride in the friendly relations which always existed between himself and
his employes. At the time of his retire­ment from business in. 1908, there were
a number of men employed in the factory at St. Louis Park who had been with him
continuously since he first engaged in business. These men Mr. Davis regarded as
his personal friends and the regard was mutual. From the day he started in
business until he retired, he never, for any reason, skipped a payday or
postponed payment of his employes' wages. In 1903, to show his appreciation of
long service, Mr. Davis distributed among the employes who had been with him for
a certain number of years, a gift of between twenty-five thousand and thirty
thousand dollars, which took the form of a bonus, the amount being decided by
the terms of service. He was a man who took great pride in look­ing after the
interests of his workmen and seeing that their rights were fully pro­tected. Mr.
Davis was an advocate of the open shop principle, believing that a workman's
wages should be governed by his ability, rather than by an arbitrary scale fixed
by parties unfamiliar with the facts and circumstances under which the work man
was employed. He delighted in paying high wages to men of ability, but was
unalterably opposed to paying incompetent men the same wages as those
pos­sessing skill and experience. He also believed that the incompetent man
should not set the scale of wages for the skillful mechanic, nor that an average
should be struck which reduced the pay of the highly skilled workman and
increased the com­pensation of the incompetent. He believed that the employer
not only should main­tain an open shop but in case where union laborers were
employed and there was a strike that he should be loyal to those who came to him
as employes at such a time and that with the settlement of the strike such men
should not be forced to lose their positions or to have to stand oppression and
opposition of strikers who were reemployed. He felt that when all employers
would be loyal and faithful to those who came to them as strikebreakers that the
conditions of capital and labor would be largely solved and he proved the
correctness of his vision in his own estab­lishment, following out the policy
that he advocated for others. He was always fair and just, believed in a good
living wage and in the adequate return for skill and ability as opposed to
incompetency."
In addition to his connection with the Monitor Drill Company Mr. Davis was
identified with several other business enterprises of importance. He was
secretary-treasurer of the Cottonwood Live Stock Company of Cody, Wyoming, where
a large sheep ranch is maintained, and he was president and treasurer of the
Davis Rice Company of Inez, Texas, owners of about three thousand acres of farm
land in that state. He became widely known through his important business
connections and through his discussion of problems and questions vital to the
interests of trade. He wrote for American Industries an article on the labor
situation that showed a most farsighted understanding of conditions and
supported just such a stand as many employers are now taking.
On the 26th of December, 1871, in Horicon, Wisconsin, Mr. Davis was united in
marriage to Miss Alice M. Sherman and they became the parents of a son, S.
Edmund, who was born in 1875 and died in 1903. There is also a daughter, Phosa,
who is the wife of E. R. Beeman of the Beeman Tractor Company of Minneapolis and
they have one son, Davis Beeman. Mr. Davis is also survived by his widow, who
occupies the beautiful residence at No. 2104 Kenwood Parkway, which Mr. Davis
erected and which was his home to the time of his demise. He and his wife had
been spending the winter in the sunny climate of California, when he was taken
ill at Pasadena and expressed a desire to return home. The start was made on a
special train but he breathed his last just as the train was pulling into his
home city. Mr. Davis was a thirty-second degree Mason and member of the Mystic
Shrine and also was identified with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the
Benevolent Protective Order of Elks and Rawlins Post, G. A. R. He took prominent
part and interest in these organiza­tions and at all times his aid and influence
were given on the side of public progress and improvement. He was a
representative business man, thoroughgoing and enter­prising, with broad vision
and keen discernment. His life was characterized by high and honorable
principles, by justice and kindliness to all with whom he came into contact, and
he won the friendship and loyalty of young and old, rich and poor. He made
personal worth the standard by which he judged men and he found his friends in
all classes, intelligence and personal worth gaining his regard at all times.