San Francisco County

Biographies

John L. Davie

John L. Davie, of the Washington Coal Company, is one of the most energetic and successful business men, one who takes an active interest in the public schools, and in all public improvements, politics, and in everything which will add to the welfare of the community and the attractions of the city of his home. Having a musical and literary bent and being of studious habits himself, he and his estimable wife (who is a descendant of the old New England Puritans) take an intense interest in the training and education of their three boys, who constitute the family.

Mr. Davie was born in Saratoga county, New York, June 24, 1850, being the oldest living son of Thaddeus and Helen Davie. His father died in 1876, aged seventy years. Mr. Davies was educated in the public schools of his native county, and at the age of sixteen began his business career as grocer’s clerk at Albany, the capital city. Soon after he spent a year in the same line of business at Chicago, Illinois. Early in the seventies he started for northern California, where the chief industry was stock-raising, to which he was specially adapted and in which he speedily engaged. Eventually he became the owner of a large ranch, embracing several thousand acres. This life, though healthy and remunerative, was lonely and afforded little opportunity for literary pursuits and for the cultivation of the higher nature. He, therefore, at intervals spent a few years in San Francisco, and finely sold his interest in land and stock and came in 1884 to the Athens of the Pacific coast, Oakland, and engaged in his present business, which has grown to be one of considerable magnitude.

From 1871 to 1888 he was an active Republican; he has since then been prominent in the councils of the American party, being especially pronounced against ecclesiastical interference of the Roman hierarchy with our public schools.

Mr. Davie was married in San Francisco, in 1880, to Miss A. E. Biddolph, who was born in Boston, June, 1858, is of Puritan stock, her ancestors having come to America among the first. She is a daughter of James and Sarah, who are both living. Her father was married in Boston in 1854, and a few years later came to California. Her mother was born in 1837, also a native of Massachusetts. Mrs. Davie’s maternal grandmother, Chipman, nee Dyer, was born 1802; she is living at the old homestead of the Dyer family at Wellsfleet, Massachusetts.

Mr. and Mrs. Davie have three sons: Frank, born March 17, 1884; William, born February 4, 1887; Fred, born April 5, 1889.

Transcribed by David and Joyce Rugeroni.

Source: "The Bay of San Francisco," Vol. 2, Page 205, Lewis Publishing Co, 1892.

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