Background
Henry Gassaway Davis was born on November 16, 1823 at Woodstock, Maryland, United States. He was the son of Caleb and Louise Warfield (Brown) Davis, was descended from old Maryland families. The third of six children.
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.
https://www.amazon.com/National-politics-Speech-Gassaway-catalog/dp/B00AC0W8IA?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B00AC0W8IA
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification: ++++ Pan-American Railway: Reports, Etc Henry Gassaway Davis Press of Gibson Bros., 1907 Transportation; Railroads; General; Transportation / Railroads / General; Transportation / Railroads / History
https://www.amazon.com/Pan-american-Railway-Henry-Gassaway-Davis/dp/1275358713?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1275358713
Henry Gassaway Davis was born on November 16, 1823 at Woodstock, Maryland, United States. He was the son of Caleb and Louise Warfield (Brown) Davis, was descended from old Maryland families. The third of six children.
Henry's early schooling was begun by his mother who, after her husband’s financial reverses which were soon followed by his death, opened a school for girls to contribute to the support of the family.
From his father’s shoulder Henry witnessed in 1828 the exercises marking the beginning of the construction of America’s first railroad, the Baltimore and Ohio, on which his father was later a construction contractor, and of which he himself became a trusted employee.
Entering the service of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad as a brakeman in 1842, he rose to the position of conductor, and in 1847 became supervisor of the line to Cumberland.
Accepting the position of station agent at Piedmont, Virginia (now West Virginia), he really assumed the duties of a division superintendent because of his responsibility for directing the movement of trains up the long incline to the summit, and over the Appalachian Divide. During the first year he lived in a box car while building a home to which he brought his wife a year later. A general store which he started at Piedmont in 1854 marked the beginning of his enterprises, which came to include trading with the interior and the opening of timber and coal fields. In 1858 he resigned his railroad position to devote his entire time to his growing business. With profits accumulated during the Civil War from the sale of supplies to the government and of equipment to railroads, he pursued larger plans based on his confidence in the resources of the upper Potomac region and the country beyond on the Cheat River. In 1867 he bought several thousand acres of timber-land on the crest of the Alleghanies, built a home in the woods, began lumbering on a large scale, and soon thereafter laid out the village of Deer Park.
By 1870 he was regarded as a man of large wealth.
In 1881 he began the construction of the West Virginia Central and Pittsburgh Railway, which was completed through primeval woods to Elkins in 1889, and with a branch extension to Durbin on the Greenbrier in 1904. At Elkins he built a large residence which became his home in 1892.
In 1902 he sold the West Virginia Central and began the construction of an important outlet from the upper Monongahela region of Tygart’s Valley via the Elk to Charleston, the Coal and Coke Railway which was completed in 1906 and the management of which he supervised until 1912.
In politics he attained prominence.
In 1865 he was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates as a Union-Conservative candidate. In 1868 he was elected, and two years later was reflected, to the state Senate. For two decades after 1868 he represented his state in the Democratic national conventions. Elected to the United States Senate in January 1871, he was reflected in 1877, but declined to be a candidate for a third term, chiefly because of the desire to devote himself to his railroad projects. He was a delegate to the first two International American (Pan-American) Congresses. In 1904, at the age of eighty-one, he was the Democratic candidate for vice-president.
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
In 1861 Davis voted against the secession of Virginia, and throughout the Civil War he was a strong Union man.
At the close of the war his sympathies were with the Republicans on the questions of a protective tariff and industrial development, but his advocacy of a conciliatory policy toward the Confederates and his opposition to test-oaths and negro suffrage determined his later cooperation with the Democrats.
On February 22, 1853, at Frederick, Maryland, Davis married Katharine Anne, daughter of Gideon Bantz.
