Amador
County
Biographies
JOHN F. DAVIS
A distinguished representative of
the bar, Judge Davis has won prominence in connection with the legal profession
and the political interests of the state, his name being deeply engraved on the
judicial records of northern California.
A resident of Jackson, Amador County, he was born on Angel Island, Marin
County, this state, on the 5th of June, 1859. His father, John F. Davis, was a native of
county Wexford, Ireland, and when very young came to California. In 1858 he was united in marriage to Miss
Mary Scally, a descendant of the noted O’Kane family of Dunseverick. The father in 1860 lost his life by drowning
in the bay of San Francisco. His
untimely death left his widow with two children, John F. and Margaret. Though she afterward married and the issue of
the marriage was a son, named Edward, the young widow at first had a hard
struggle, and Judge Davis has always claimed that he owed everything in life to
his mother.
The Judge obtained his preliminary
education in the (then) North Cosmopolitan grammar school of San Francisco, and
later attended the Boys’ High School of that city, being graduated at the
latter institution in the class of 1876.
Subsequently he took a post-graduate course of one year under Professor
W. T. Reid, who was afterward the president of the State University. Thus well prepared for college, in 1877 Mr.
Davis entered Harvard University at Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was graduated
in 1881, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, winning high honors in his
class. He was chosen as one of the
commencement orators of the graduation exercises, and won the respect and
admiration of his fellow students as well as his preceptors by his excellent
scholarship. After the completion of his
college course he returned to California and entered the Hastings College of
Law, at which he was graduated in 1884, being again chosen one of the orators
on the occasion of the graduation exercises.
Admitted to the bar by the supreme court of the state, he at once began
practice. In order to pursue his law
studies he taught Greek and mathematics in San Francisco and Berkeley during
the three years in which he prepared for his chosen profession. The self-reliance, resolution and energy
which thus enabled him to make his own way through the law schools have been
important factors in his later success.
Becoming a member of the San
Francisco bar, Mr. Davis practiced there for a short time, after which he spent
two years in Europe in travel and study, becoming proficient in the French and
German languages through daily use of the same.
He attended a course of lectures in Paris at the Ecole
des Sciences Politiques, and later returned to
California, taking up his residence in Calaveras County in order to assist in
the management of the Esmeralda gold mine.
However, after a few years spent in the management of that mining
property, he resumed the practice of law and soon won distinctive preferment as
a representative of the legal profession.
In the fall of 1892 he was the Republican candidate for congress in the
second district of the state, but met defeat in the great Democratic tidal wave
of that year. A month after the election
Governor Markham appointed him judge of the superior court of Amador County, to
serve out the unexpired term of Judge C. B. Armstrong, deceased. At that time Judge Davis transferred his
residence to Jackson, where he has since made his home. Upon the expiration of his term on the bench
he declined his party’s nomination for that office and resumed the private
practice of law, in which he has met with gratifying success, retaining a large
and distinctively representative clientage.
On the 26th of November,
1896, the Judge was happily married to Miss Lillian Parks, a native of Sierra
County, California, and a daughter of James F. Parks, who is the superintendent
of the Kennedy mine, of Amador County.
They now have two interesting little daughters, Mary and Ruth. Judge Davis is a member of the Native Sons of
the Golden West, taking an active part in its work and being often a member of
the grand parlor. He is also a member of
the Harvard and Union League Clubs of San Francisco, of the Beta Theta Pi Greek
letter fraternity, and of the California State Miners’ Association. In politics he is a staunch Republican,
active in the conventions of his party and earnest in his advocacy of its
principles. In 1898 he was elected to
the state senate from the fourteenth district, an office which he still holds.
While undoubtedly he is not without
that honorable ambition which is so powerful and useful an incentive to
activity in public affairs, he regards the pursuits of private life as being in
themselves abundantly worthy of his best efforts. His is a noble character, one that
subordinates personal ambition to the public good and seeks rather the benefit
of others than the aggrandizement of self.
His career has been conspicuously successful. Endowed by nature with high intellectual
qualities, to which have been added the discipline and embellishment of
culture, his is a most attractive personality.
Well versed in the learning of his profession and with a deep knowledge
of human nature and of the springs of human conduct, with great shrewdness and
sagacity and extraordinary tact, he has been in the courts an advocate of great
power and influence. Both judges and
jurors always hear him with attention and deep interest, and today he occupies
a leading position in the ranks of the legal fraternity of northern California.
Transcribed by Gerald
Iaquinta.
Source:
“A Volume of Memoirs and Genealogy of Representative Citizens of Northern
California”, Pages 449-451. Chicago Standard Genealogical Publishing Co. 1901.
© 2010
Gerald Iaquinta.
Golden Nugget Library's Amador County Biographies