Webster Davis

Davis was born on June 1, 1861, in Ebensburg, Pennsylvania. In 1868 his family moved to a farm in Chillicothe, Missouri and then to Gallatin, Missouri where his father began a shoemaking operation. He worked on the farm, clerked in a store and worked in his shoemaking business.[1]

In 1881 Davis moved to Lake Forest, Illinois, where he was a lamplighter. He then returned to Gallatin, and resumed shoemaking and clerking.[1] In 1882 Davis became a copyist in the law office of Shanklin, Low & McDougal and studied law while he worked there.[1] In 1884 he attended the University of Kansas and became a lawyer initially practicing in Garden City, Kansas.[1]

Davis became active in the Republican Party. After graduating from the University of Michigan Law School he moved to Kansas City, Missouri where he unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 1892.[1]

Davis was elected as mayor of Kansas City in 1894. In 1897, Davis was appointed by President William McKinley as Assistant Secretary of the Interior.[1]

He was forced to resign after an 1898 visit to South Africa when he sympathized with the Boers. Unable to get a plank supporting them in the Republican Party platform, he switched to being a Democrat.[1][2] He wrote a book about the Boer War entitled John Bull's Crime: Or, Assaults on Republics which was published in 1901.

He died in Kansas City on February 22, 1923,[2] and is buried in Elmwood Cemetery.[3][4]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Webster Davis.

• Webster Davis at Find a Grave