My Genealogy Hound

JAMES H. DAVIS, president of the First National Bank at Gibbon, Buffalo county, is a native of the town of Whitingham, Windham county, Vt., and was born May 6, 1843. He comes of New England parentage, his father, Amiel K. Davis, and his mother, whose maiden name was Betsey Saunders, both being natives of Vermont, where they always lived and where they died, the father in 1885 at the age of seventy-one years, and the mother in 1873 at the age of sixty. Mr. Davis is the third of a family of eight children born to his parents, the others being Lucy, George, Francis, Amelia, Romanzo, Flora and Reuben. He received the meager rudiments of a common-school education, leaving home at the age of nine and going out into the world to make his way alone. He sought his first employment in the northwestern part of Massachusetts and was there in 1862, when in August of that year he entered the Union army, enlisting in Company B, Fifty-second Massachusetts infantry. He served in this command for nine months, when the term of his enlistment having expired he returned to Massachusetts and remained there till August, 1864. He then entered the service a second time, enlisting in the Second Massachusetts light artillery, but that command being full he was transferred to the Sixth Massachusetts battery. With this he served until the surrender, being mustered out in June, 1865, at New Orleans, La. Returning to Franklin county, Mass., he was for two years engaged as manager of a grist mill at Colerain, that county, and two years in the general mercantile business at the same place. Moving thence to Milford, that state, he entered the employ of Davis & Eastman, manufacturers of boot and shoe boxes, learned the business with them, became their second manager and remained with them between three and four years. Then, in July, 1873, he came to Nebraska and settled at Gibbon, Buffalo county, where he immediately began the erection of the Gibbon flouring mills. He operated this mill for a period of twelve years, it being one of the first mills built in central Nebraska and having a reputation all over the central and western part of the state not only as pioneer mill but as turning out the best milling products to be found any where west of the Missouri river. Quitting the mill in 1885 on account of a failure of health, Mr. Davis started a private bank at Gibbon, which he continued up to August, 1888. At that date he organized the First National Bank, of which he became president and to which he has given his attention chiefly since. The First National Bank has a capital of $50,000. It has done a steadily increasing volume of business since it was organized, and its affairs are in a prosperous condition, which fact is due in no small measure to the influence and judicious management of its chief executive. Mr. Davis has considerable real estate and stock interests in Buffalo county and is thoroughly identified with the farmers and stock-growers of his community. He has devoted himself strictly to the prosecution of his own personal affairs and yet it could not happen that a man of his interests and business qualifications should escape being called upon to fill public office. In the fall of 1879 ho was elected to the legislature from Buffalo county and served one term, taking an active part in the general course of legislation before the lower house and doing a large amount of efficient work as a member of the several committees on which he served. One measure of significance for which the people of Buffalo county have special cause to remember him was the bill which he secured having enacted into a law, locating the State Industrial school at Kearney. For the passage of this bill he was a tireless worker and it was due mainly to his efforts that Kearney and Buffalo county secured the much coveted prize. To the discharge of his general duties as a legislator he brought the same zeal, energy and sound and discriminating judgment which had characterized him and yet continues to characterize him in his conduct of his own personal affairs. In the growth and development of his own locality he has exhibited equal zeal and fidelity. He has been a member of the village school board of Gibbon for more than fifteen years, he has served as a member of the village council when called on for that purpose and he has been among the first, both with money and with personal influence and effort, in securing and promoting industries, enterprises and interests of a local nature for his town and community. He is a man of progressive ideas, broad and liberal in his views and practical in his methods. Honest and frank by nature, generous in disposition, he is not without friends and admirers and his influence is sought by those who know his ability and who prize his judgment.

Mr. Davis married in August, 1864, taking for a companion Miss Emily M. Avery of Franklin county Massachusetts, who like himself is a descendant of old New England stock, being a daughter of James Avery, a native of the “Bay State.” Two children have been the result of this union — a daughter, Emma L., now wife of Charles Galloway, of Broken Bow, Nebr., and a son, Roy.

In politics Mr. Davis is a republican, a stanch believer in the teachings and methods of his party. He is a zealous mason, having taken all the degrees up to and including that of Knight Templar, being also a member of the Mystic Shrine.