CRAWFORD FREEMAN DAVIS

DAVIS, CRAWFORD

Posted By: Deborah Barker (email)
Date: 7/6/2026 at 18:43:49

Davis County IA Archives Biographies.....Davis, Crawford Freeman 1854 -
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 November 29, 2011, 6:57 pm

Source: See below
Author: Lewis Publishing Co. (1896)

CRAWFORD FREEMAN DAVIS, of Bloomfield, the subject of this sketch, was born in
Iroquois county, Illinois, January 29, 1854, and was brought by his parents to
Davis county, Iowa, the following summer, who settled on a farm in Perry
township, that county. They lived there till the fall of 1864, when they moved
to Bloomfield, where Mr. Davis has since made his home. His father, John R.
Davis, is an inventor, now living in Chicago. His mother's maiden name was
Barsheba J. Crawford. Mr. Davis' father is a Canadian and his mother Scoth-Irish.

Mr. Davis, whose name introduces this outline, received only a common-school
education; in 1872 was Assistant Postmaster at Bloomfield; in the spring of 1873
learned telegraphy and was operator at the Wabash depot for nearly a year; in
the summer of 1874 began learning the printer's trade in the office of the
Grangers' Advocate; and in the summer of 1876 began studying law (in connection
with his work as a type-setter), studying under the instructions of General
Weaver and M. H. Jones, and was admitted to the bar at the April term (1878) of
the circuit court at Bloomfield. In the fall of 1877 and winter following he
taught school. The next June he established the Legal Tender Greenback, at
Bloomfield, continuing the publication under that name till 1890, when it was
changed to the name it now bears, Bloomfield Farmer. He has been editor and
proprietor of the paper continuously since its first issue in 1878.

March 30, 1880, he was married to Miss Mamie Hagan, of Bloomfield. Of their
union four children have been born, two of whom are living and two deceased.

In August, 1885, he was appointed a Special Examiner in the United States
Pension Bureau, and after going to Washington and passing a civil-service
examination he was sent into the field with headquarters at Moberly, Missouri,
and held the office till April 30, 1889. He was a delegate to the Pomeroy
national convention at St. Louis in 1880 and also a delegate to the Greenback
national convention at Chicago the same year. He was reading secretary of the
Greenback national convention at Indianapolis, in 1884, and was also a delegate
to the Populist national convention at Omaha, in 1892. He has been reading
secretary of nearly every State convention of the reform party in Iowa since
1878, and has been, honored by his party with the nomination for State Auditor.
In 1892 he was appointed Pacific Express Agent at Bloomfield, which position he
now holds. He cast his first vote in 1876, voting for Peter Cooper for
president, and ever since then has acted with the finance and labor reform
party. Of late years, in connection with his other business, he has engaged in
raising road horses.

Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

A MEMORIAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OF IOWA

ILLUSTRATED

CHICAGO: THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
1896

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