Weston County WY Archives Biographies.....Davis, Benjamin F. 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 June 13, 2009, 3:28 pm

Author: Bowen & Co. (1903)

BENJAMIN F. DAVIS.
    Highly esteemed among the people where he has passed the last twenty years
of his life, having served them in all the best features of private life and
also in public station as a county commissioner during an important period in
the history of the county, the builder and maker of a leading stock industry in
their midst which he has developed from a small beginning and holding himself in
readiness for the manly discharge of every duty. Benjamin F. Davis, of near
Newcastle in Weston county, illustrates in his character and career the sterling
qualities and useful elements of American citizenship. He is by nativity one of
that restless and conquering class known as New Engenders, having been born at
Shutesbury, Mass., on November 8, 1847. His parents, John H. and Mary (Gray)
Davis, were also natives of Massachusetts and passed their lives within the
borders of that state, the father being an energetic farmer and lumberman who
died in February, 1901, surviving his wife by forty years, she having died in
1861. Both were born and reared in Shutesbury, and their bodies now quietly rest
beneath the green sward of its cemetery. Benjamin F. Davis remained at home
until he was nineteen years of age, receiving his education in the public
schools of his native place, at New Salem Academy and at Cazenovia (N. Y.)
Seminary. In 1867 he took up the burden of life for himself by accepting
employment in a sawmill in his home comity, remaining with this outfit for seven
years, when he went to work for a butcher and soon thereafter a hotel, keeping
at these various occupations until 1874. In that year, seeking a home and an
opportunity for larger business in the boundless West, he traveled through Iowa
and adjoining states for a year, making his way gradually into Texas and there
engaging in bridge building for the G. H. & S. A. Railroad, in whose employment
he passed three years. In 1878 he returned north to Nebraska, there becoming a
clerk and salesman for Jones, McGee & Co., lumber merchants, and with them
following the construction of the Burlington Railroad through the state. In the
autumn of 18S0 he located in Custer county, S. D., and did carpentering,
ranching and mining, as opportunity offered or necessity required. Three years
later he came to Wyoming and taking up the ranch he now occupies, began a stock
industry on a small scale which he has gradually expanded and improved until it
is one of the leading enterprises of its kind in this part of the state and it
is conducted on a ranch which he has greatly developed and improved with good
buildings and by skillful cultivation. In connection with Mr. Sweet, whose ranch
adjoins his, he runs a sawmill which is operated at the junction of their
properties. He is also interested in the oil industry, owning promising land in
the Newcastle fields. In politics Mr. Davis is an ardent and active Republican,
having given close and serviceable attention to the affairs of his party,
bearing his share of the burdens of its campaigns and yet not seeking its honors
or emoluments. He yielded once however to a popular demand and served as county
commissioner for the term of 1892-94. Fraternally he is connected with the order
of Freemasons, holding membership in the lodge at Newcastle.


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

PROGRESSIVE MEN OF THE STATE OF WYOMING

ILLUSTRATED

A people who take no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors, will
never achieve anything worthy to he remembered with pride by remote
generations.—.MACAULAY.

CHICAGO, ILL.
A. W. BOWEN & CO.
PUBLISHERS AND ENGRAVERS
1903


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