RICHMOND DAVIS

       One of the great forces that brings success in life is unyielding tenacity of purpose.  Dash and audacity and superficial cleverness may create a stir for a time, but they achieve no lasting success. "He can toil terribly," is what an opponent said of Sir Walter Raleigh.  That is true of all successful men.  They have gained their positions by diligence and thoroughness.  In America "labor is king," and the sovereignty that the liberty-loving people of this nation acknowledge is that of business.  The men of influence in this enlightened age are the enterprising, progressive representatives of commerce and agriculture, and to such ones advancement and progress are due.  Mr. Davis is one who has had the mental poise and calm judgment to successfully guide and control extensive business affairs and investments, and at the same time has had a keen appreciation of the ethics of commercial life, so that he has not only commanded the respect of his fellow men for his uprightness, but also excited their admiration by his splendid abilities, which have gained him rank among the prosperous residents of Sacramento.

       Richmond Davis was born in Cayuga county, New York, on the 31st of March, 1835, and is a son of John and Sarah Davis.  The father was a native of the Empire State and as a means of livelihood followed the occupation of farming.  He died in Cayuga county, at the age of sixty years , and his wife, a native of New Jersey, passed away in the same county when eighty years of age.  She was the mother of four children, two of whom are yet living.  The representative of the family now prominently connected with the capital city of California was reared on the family homestead and early became familiar with the duties and labors that fall to the lot of the agriculturist.  To the district school system he is indebted for the educational privileges which he received.  He assisted his father in the work of the farm until he had attained his majority, when he emigrated westward to Michigan, and in 1848 purchased a farm in Calhoun county, near Battle Creek, that state.  For four years he devoted his energies to agricultural pursuits there, and then sold his property preparatory to making an overland journey to California.  With a party of twenty or more, he left Battle Creek, and after a trip of six months' duration across the barren plains and rugged mountains, reached Coloma, California, where he secured employment with a man who conducted a boarding house.  Subsequently he came to Sacramento, then a small mining town giving little promise of the transformation which was to make it one of the most beautiful and attractive cities on the Pacific coast.  In this locality he turned his attention to farming, which he carried on very extensively, as, with the passing years, he was enabled to purchase more land.  As the state became more thickly settled and the land values rose proportionately, he made judicious investments in real estate, and is now the owner of much valuable property, which ranks him among the capitalists of Sacramento.