BIO: J. T. DAVIS, Clearfield County, PA Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Judy Banja & Sally Copyright 2005. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/clearfield/ NOTE: Use this web address to access other bios: http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/clearfield/1picts/swoope/swoope.htm _____________________________________________________________ From Twentieth Century History of Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, and Representative Citizens, by Roland D. Swoope, Jr., Chicago: Richmond-Arnold Publishing Company, 1911, page 908. _____________________________________________________________ J. T. DAVIS,* owner and proprietor of the Grampian Electric Light plant at Grampian, Pa., where he is also interested in other business enterprises, was born July 12, 1863, in Penn township, Clearfield county, Pa., and is a son of Joseph and Elizabeth (Wall) Davis. J. T. Davis is a member of one of the old and representative Penn township families. He was educated in this township and at Pennville and the Curwensville Normal School, afterward teaching one term in Bloom township and one term in Penn township. His family is largely an agricultural one but his talents and inclinations led him in another direction. He built the first planing mill at Grampian, Pa., which he operated for three years and then turned his attention more particularly to lumbering and with a portable saw mill, cut over a large tract of timber near Curwensville. He then bought a farm of 140 acres in Penn township, but disposed of it and returned to Grampian, where he erected the first electric light plant and still operates it, supplying Grampian with all its electric power. Mr. Davis also started the first five-cent theater in the place and still owns this property. Mr. Davis is recognized as an enterprising and forceful business man. He takes no very active part in politics, casting his vote independent of any party affiliations. On December 13, 1888, Mr. Davis was married to Miss Jennie E. Kester, who was born in Penn township, September 23, 1871, a daughter of S. Lewis and Alice (Wall) Kester. They have six children, namely: Alice Elizabeth, who teaches music at Verona, Pa.; Joseph L., who is a graduate of the electric department of the Scranton Correspondence School; and Beulah Zelma, Dorsey, Harold and Wilford. Mr. Davis and family are members of the Society of Friends.