Joseph J. Davenport Biography


	This biography appears on pages 112-116 in "History of Dakota Territory" 
	by George W. Kingsbury, Vol. IV (1915) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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				JOSEPH J. DAVENPORT.  

	Joseph J. Davenport is the president of the waterworks company of 
Sturgis and formerly was actively and successfully engaged in the 
banking business. His efforts have ever been of a character that have 
contributed to public progress as well as to individual success and his 
spirit of enterprise has constituted a factor in the upbuilding and 
development of the city in which he makes his home, To such men the 
northwest owes much, for they have been the real builders of the 
state's progress and prosperity. Mr. Davenport was born in Woodford 
county, Illinois, January 23, 1850, a son of John J. and Lucy A. 
(Bullock) Davenport. both natives of Woodford county, Kentucky, the 
former born in 1814 and the latter in September, 1825. They were 
married in Illinois, where John J. Davenport settled in pioneer times, 
becoming one of the early residents of Woodford county. In fact, both 
the paternal and maternal grandparents of Joseph J. Davenport took up 
their abode in that district in an early day and named the county in 
honor of the old home county in Kentucky. John J. Davenport devoted his 
life to farming until he passed away in 1852 during the cholera 
epidemic, his father, who was a minister, bringing the disease from 
Peoria, where he had been preaching. Mrs. Davenport long survived her 
husband, departing this life in Danville, Illinois, in October, 1914, 
after residing there with her daughter for thirty years. In the family 
were six children, of whom Joseph J. and a twin sister were next to the 
youngest and are the only ones now living. The sister, Maria M., is the 
wife of Benjamin F. Siner, a retired molder, living in Danville.

	Joseph J. Davenport attended school at Minonk, Illinois, after 
having previously spent three months at a private school in Metamora. 
He was eighteen years of age before he entered school but he has made 
up for his lack of early opportunities in that direction and in the 
school of experience has learned many valuable lessons of life. In the 
fall of 1871, when twenty-one years of age, he entered the State 
University of Illinois at Champaign, where he continued his studies for 
three years. His life has been one of earnest and unremitting toil and 
at the time when most boys are in school and surrounded by parental 
care be was forced to earn his own living, being but eight years of age 
when he was employed at herding sheep and similar work. He spent five 
years in the service of Isaac Boys, three miles north of Metamora, 
Illinois, and for two years he was a light weight rider for William 
Brady, of Peoria, the owner of fine racing stock. He then accepted a 
position under the station agent at Eureka, Illinois, for a year, 
during which time he studied telegraphy, and afterward was employed as 
a newsboy on trains for three years. He next accepted the position of 
brakeman, running between Peoria and Chenoa for about two years and 
during part of that time was in charge of a freight train. Up to that 
time he had never attended school and when he sustained an injury to 
his hand he went to the road superintendent to show him his condition. 
The superintendent advised him, because of the injury, which would 
compel him to lay off for a time, to go back to his home and attend 
school.  

	Mr. Davenport followed the advice, walking from Peoria to 
Metamora. After a year spent in school at Minonk he obtained a 
certificate and engaged in teaching school for a year. In 1871, as 
previously stated, he entered the University of Illinois at Champaign, 
where he remained until 1874, when his money was exhausted and he 
opened a news stand in Urbana. In 1875 he went to New York in the 
employ of the Chicago Feather Duster Company, opening a branch office 
in the eastern metropolis. He sold the first split feather turkey 
duster ever sold in New York city and continued in that business for 
three years. He then obtained a position in the Marine National Bank at 
No. 84 Wall street, New York, and continued there until the failure of 
the bank in 1884. He remained with the receiver for one month, at the 
end of which time he started for the northwest with Sturgis as his 
destination, arriving there in June, 1884. He then accepted the 
position of cashier in the Lawrence County Bank, which he organized 
with a capital of twenty-five thousand dollars. Subsequently this was 
consolidated with the Box & Stebbins Bank and Mr. Davenport organized 
the First National Bank of Sturgis, with which he was connected until 
he disposed of his banking interests in 1896. Four years before he had 
established the Sturgis water plant, turning on the water on the 9th of 
March, 1893, having obtained a twenty years, franchise. In 1896 he 
disposed of his banking interests to the organizers of the Meade County 
Bank and since that time he has concentrated his efforts upon the 
management of the waterworks, being president of the company, which is 
a close corporation, the family owning the entire stock, worth one 
hundred thousand dollars. Mr. Davenport has also engaged in the real-
estate business continuously through the period of his residence in 
Sturgis and is still an extensive landowner in South Dakota.  

	On the 14th of October, 1885, was celebrated the marriage of Mr. 
Davenport and Miss Sara E. Jarvis, who was born in Brooklyn, New York, 
a daughter of Daniel and Amelia (Robinson) Jarvis, natives of the 
Empire state, born in 1835 and 1840 respectively. They were married in 
1855. The father was reared on Long Island and became a sea captain, 
following the sea for thirty years or more. In 1892 he removed to the 
west, settling in Sturgis, where he engaged in ranching until his 
death, in February, 1908. For about thirteen years he had survived his 
wife, who died March 9, 1895. Mrs. Davenport was their only child. By 
her marriage she has become the mother of four children. Alice J., the 
eldest, is the wife of Albert L. Bodley, of the Security Land & 
Abstract Company of Sturgis, and they have one child, Virginia Jarvis. 
Florence Agnes, who is a graduate of Columbia University of New York, 
where she specialized in physical education, is now in charge of that 
work in a school for girls at Highland Hall, Hollidaysburg, 
Pennsylvania. She is also a graduate of All Saints school at Sioux 
Falls, South Dakota, spent one year in the Cumnock school at Los 
Angeles, California, and for two years was a teacher in All Saints at 
Sioux Falls. John J., the third of the family, died in February, 1909, 
at the age of fifteen years. Jarvis Daniel, the fourth of the family, 
is now attending the Shattuck Military Academy at Faribault, Minnesota, 
where he is preparing to take up the study of mechanical engineering 
and expects to enter Throop College, a technical school of California.  

	The family attend the Presbyterian church, of which Mr. and Mrs. 
Davenport are members, and he belongs also to the Masonic fraternity, 
holding membership in Olive Branch Lodge, No. 47, A. F. & A. M., of 
Sturgis; Black Hills Chapter, No. 25, R. A. M., of Rapid City; Dakota 
Commandery, No. 1. K. T., of Deadwood; Deadwood Consistory, No. 3, S. 
P. R. S.; and Naja Temple of the Mystic Shrine of Deadwood. He is very 
prominent in the organization, has passed through all of the chairs in 
the blue lodge, is a past potentate of the Shrine and was grand master 
of South Dakota in 1908 and 1909. Mr. Davenport is a member of the 
Masonic Veterans Association and was its president during 1904 and 
1905. He is grand representative of the grand lodge of Australia, and 
he was one of the distinguished grand masters specially invited to 
attend the unusual ceremonies when ex-President Taft was made "a Master 
Mason at sight" in Cincinnati in February, 1909. He laid the corner 
stone of the new state capitol at Pierre in June, 1908, when the grand 
lodge assembled there especially for that purpose, and in October, 
1908, he laid the corner stone of the new Masonic Temple at Redfield, 
South Dakota. He is known everywhere as a most eloquent speaker and his 
different addresses in the Masonic lodges as well as elsewhere are 
masterpieces of logic and show a remarkable fund of knowledge on all 
subjects. His political allegiance has always been given to the 
republican party, which was the defense of the Union during the dark 
days of the Civil war, when he served as drummer boy for Company E, One 
Hundred and Eighth Illinois Volunteer Infantry. He was refused 
enlistment three times on account of his youth and size but remained 
with his company for over a year or until sent home with typhoid fever. 
Mr. Davenport is truly a self-made man and his life indicates that no 
matter how much may be done for the individual in the way of giving him 
the advantages which are sought ill the schools and in other 
connections, he must essentially formulate, determine and give shape to 
his own character. He has persevered in the pursuit of a persistent 
purpose and has gained a most satisfactory reward. A man of great 
natural ability, his success in business from the beginning of his 
residence in Sturgis has been uniform and rapid. He thoroughly enjoys 
home life, takes great pleasure in the society of his family and 
friends, is always courteous, kindly and affable, and his life in many 
respects is most exemplary. He has ever supported those interests which 
are calculated to uplift and benefit humanity, while his own high moral 
worth is deserving of the warmest commendation.