164 DAVIS. DAVIS. Besides his literary labors, he was for years on the lecture platform, from which he was forced to retire, in 1865, on account of a protracted throat trouble. The published works of Mr. Davis, be- sides the one mentioned, are : " The Great Harmonia," six volumes ; "The Physician;" " The Seer ; " " The Teacher ; " " The Re- former ; " "Stellar Key;" "Arabula;" "Tale of a Physician;" "The Forma- tion ; " " The Temple ; " " Views of our Heavenly Home ; " " Approaching Crisis ; or, Truth against Theology ;" " Penetralia," and its sequel, " Answers to Ever-recurring Questions ;" " History and Philosophy of Evil ; " " Death and the After Life ;" " Har- monial Man ; " " Events in the Life of a Seer ; " " Philosophy of Special Provi- dences ; " " Free Thoughts Concerning Re- ligion ; " "The Inner Life," and "The Genesis and Ethics of Conjugal Love." DAVIS, Charles Gideon, son of William and Joanna (White) Davis, was born in Plymouth, Plymouth county. May 30, 1820. His grandfather was a son of Thomas Davis, who married Catharine Wendell, of Albany, N. Y., of the family from which Wendell Phillips and Oliver Wendell Holmes derived their Christian names. His mother was in the seventh generation from Peregrine White, born in the cabin of the " Mayflower." The father of the subject of this sketch died in 1824. His mother was left with five chil- dren, one of whom, Sarah, died in childhood. Hon. William 'I'. Davis is his younger brother. At ten years of age he was sent to a private school in Hingham, thence to the high school in Plymouth, until the spring of 1836, when he was sent to Bridgewater, where he completed his preparation for Harvard College, which he entered that year, and from which he was graduated in the class of 1840, a Phi Beta Kappa. He studied law the first year after gradu- ating in the office of Hon. Jacob H. Loud, Plymouth, one year at the Dane law school, Harvard University, and the third year with Hubbard & Watts, Boston ; was ad- mitted to the bar, August term, 1S43, in Plymouth. He opened an office in Boston with William H. Whitman, present clerk of courts, Plymouth county, as partner, and was afterwards associated with George P. Sanger and Seth Webb. His law business flourished, and his clientage increased, when, in 185 1, he was obliged to abandon his Boston office work on account of bron- chial trouble, and accordingly betook him- self to a farm purchased in the outskirts of his native town, where he engaged in out- of-door work, and attended to nothing pro- fessional, save the trial of causes, for a year. This manner of life he has continued to the present time, doing but little office work. Judge Davis was married in Plymouth, November 19, 1845, to Hannah Stevenson, daughter of Col. John B. and Mary Howland (LeBaron) Thomas. Of this union were four children, two of whom survive : Joanna White Davis, now wife of Richard H. Morgan, of New Bedford, and Charles Stevenson Davis, a lawyer in Plymouth. CHARLES G DAVIS. Judge Davis was a strong anti-slavery man, and joined with Gov. John A. Andrew, F. W. Bird and others in a movement against the re-election of Robert C. Winthrop for Congress, in 1846, and offered the resolu- tion in Faneuil Hall which first nominated Charles Sumner for congressional honors. In 184S he attended the national Whig convention in Philadelphia, which nomi- nated General Taylor for president, and a fortnight after, went to the " Barn-Burners " convention in Utica, N. Y., which nomi- nated Martin Van Buren ; and, after the nomination of Van Buren and Adams at Buffalo, he devoted himself to organizing the "Free Soilers" of Plymouth county. He thus repudiated, with other leading
