John Davis

"JOHN DAVIS. (1761-1847.) Hon. John Davis, LL.D., born in Plymouth, Mass., Jan. 25, 1761, was the son of Thomas and Mercy (Hedge) Davis. He attended the schools of Alexander Scammel and Peleg Wadsworth, the former an Adjutant-General of the American Army, who was killed at the battle of Yorktown, and the latter the grandfather of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Having entered Harvard College in 1777, he graduated with honor at the Commencement in 1781, on which occasion he was the class poet. He afterward taught school in Plymouth, and, still later, was a teacher in the family of Joseph Otis, of Barnstable, the brother of James Otis. He studied law with Oakes Angier, of Bridgewater, and subsequently with Benjamin Lincoln, son of General Lincoln of the Revolution, and began the practice of his profession in Plymouth in 1786, during which year also he was married to Ellen Watson, daughter of Hon. William Watson, of that town. A delegate to the convention held for the adoption of the Federal Constitution, he was both its youngest member and oldest survivor. At various times he represented his fellow-citizens in the two branches of the Massachusetts Legislature. He was appointed Comptroller of the United States Treasury by Washington, and afterward United States Attorney, removing his residence to Boston, where he lived until his death, Jan. 14, 1847. By President John Adams he was honored, in 1801, with the office of Judge of the District Court of Massachusetts, and remained on the bench for forty years. He was one of the Fellows of Harvard College from 1803 to 1810, its Treasurer from 1810 to 1827, and a member of its Board of Overseers from 1827 to 1837; received the degree of LL.D. from Dartmouth College in 1802, and from his Alma Mater in 1842; was for a time President of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and was a member also of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia. He published an edition of Morton's 'New England Memorial,' which he enriched with copious and valuable notes; and he was the author of numerous other works which added to his wide and justly deserved fame. At the time he resigned his judicial office, Hon. Franklin Dexter, in presenting the resolutions of the Boston Bar, spoke of his labors on the bench as exhibiting 'varied and accurate learning, sound and discriminating judgment, unwearied patience, gentleness of manners, and perfect purity.' Hon. George S. Hillard said of him, in his speech at the dinner of the Plymouth celebration of 1870: 'His was the pure and lofty spirit of the Pilgrims, softened by the influences of a milder age and of a creed less stern. In him was the "prisca fides," the ancient faith of Marcellus, and the "mitis sapientia,' the gentle wisdom of Laelius. He was wise and good, tender and true; the calm of age was in his youth, and the freshness and hopefulness of youth was in his age.'"

--Alfred P. Putnam, Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1875), pp. 3-4. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/103020200