Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Davidson, James Wood

DAVIDSON, James Wood, author, b. in Newberry district, S. C., 9 March, 1829. He was graduated at South Carolina college, Columbia, in 1852, studied languages under private tutors, in 1854-'9 was professor of Greek in Mount Zion college, Winnsboro, S. C., and in 1859 became principal of Carolina high-school, Columbia. In 1862-'3 he was adjutant of infantry in Jackson's corps of Lee's army. He left Columbia in 1871, and lived two years in Washington, D. C., and eleven years in New York city, where he was literary editor of the “Evening Post” in 1873, and American correspondent of the London “Standard” in 1873-'8. He removed to Figulus, Dade co., Fla., in 1884, where he continues his literary work, and is engaged in fruit-culture. In 1885 he was a member of the Florida constitutional convention. Mr. Davidson has published “Living Writers of the South” (New York, 1869); “School History of South Carolina” (Columbia, 1869; new ed., 1886); and “The Correspondent” (New York, 1886); and has edited “Lyrics and Sketches,” by William M. Martin (1865), and “The Educational Year-Book” (1872). He has in preparation a “Dictionary of Southern Authors,” and “Helen of Troy,” a fiction of Homeric times.