William Morris Davis was an abolitionist, author and a Republican

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

 member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

. Among his friends were the New York sculptor Henry Kirke Brown

Henry Kirke Brown

Henry Kirke Brown was an American sculptor.-Life:He began to paint portraits while still a boy, studied painting in Boston under Chester Harding, learned a little about modelling, and in 1836-1839 spent his summers working as a railroad engineer to earn enough to enable him to study further.He spent...

, and the lock inventor Linus Yale

Linus Yale

Linus Yale is the name of:*Linus Yale, Sr. , American inventor and manufacturer of pin-tumbler locks.*Linus Yale, Jr. , innovator in cylinder lock technology, son and business partner of the above....

.

Early life

William Morris Davis was born in Keene Valley, New York. He moved to Pennsylvania and became a sugar refiner in Philadelphia. Davis was elected as a Republican to the Thirty-seventh

37th United States Congress

The Thirty-seventh United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, consisting of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from March 4, 1861 to March 4, 1863, during the first two...

 Congress. He died in Keene Valley in 1891. Interment in Friends Fair Hill Burial Ground in Germantown, Pennsylvania

Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Germantown is a neighborhood in the northwest section of the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, about 7–8 miles northwest from the center of the city...

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Works

• Nimrod of the Sea or The American Whaleman - AOSTON (Harper & Bros., New York 1874)

Sources

• The Political Graveyard
• Congress biographical notes

External links

• The Davis, Brown, and Yale Families Correspondence, including personal letters from William Morris Davis, are available for research use at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania
  Historical Society of Pennsylvania
  The Historical Society of Pennsylvania is a historical society founded in 1824 and based in Philadelphia. The Society's building, designed by Addison Hutton and listed on Philadelphia's Register of Historical Places, houses some 600,000 printed items and over 19 million manuscript and graphic items...
  
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