****************************************************************************
File contributed to the Fulton County ILGenWeb Project
Copyright 2008, all rights reserved.

These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format 
without the written consent of the author at http://fulton.ilgenweb.net.

****************************************************************************

Source: The Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Fulton County
Munsell Publishing Co., Chicago, 1908

****************************************************************************

The Biography of Ernest E. DAVIS, M.D. 

Transcribed exactly according to the original complete text by Anne Marie Willis. 

[Surnames: DAVIS, ROSS, STEVENS, WOODS] 

[Pages 851] 

    
DAVIS, Ernest E., M. D.--The kind of energy, resource and large-mindedness required of the young man who would succeed in any of the learned professions in these days of strenuous effort and severe competition, seem to be an integral part of the equipment of Dr. Ernest E. Davis, a medical and surgical practitioner of Avon for the past five years, and the recipient of a patronage as financially remunerative as it is intellectually satisfying and encouraging. Dr. Davis is an enthusiastic and careful thinker, and not withstanding his well-known caution and respect for tradition, is not afraid of untrod paths or independent, individual effort. He inherits his predilection for medicine from his father, Dr. Hosea Davis, a native of Massachusetts, where he was born June 21, 1817, and where he lived for a number of years. After graduating at Dartmouth College, N.H., he went to Maryland, where he was engaged in teaching about two years. Then, after taking a course of lectures in Chicago, he began the practice of medicine in Indiana, later returning to Chicago, where he took a course in Rush Medical College, from which he graduated in 1853. He then located at Littleton, Schuyler County, Ill., which continued to be his home for the remainder of his life, and where he died in 1888, aged seventy-one years. Dr. Davis married Sarah A. Stevens, who also was a native of Massachusetts, born September 21, 1833. 
    
On June 21, 1906, Dr. Davis was married to Miss Frances Ross, who was born in Avon, Ill., the daughter of Joseph and Emma (Woods) Ross, both natives of Fulton County. Her father, Joseph Ross, was a son of the late General Leonard F. Ross, who was a prominent factor in the Civil War, and [General Leonard F. Ross was] a son of Ossian M. Ross, a prominent pioneer of Fulton County. General Leonard F. Ross was a Republican in politics and during the latter years of his life extensively engaged in farming and stock-raising. The mother of Mrs. Davis died when the latter was about fifteen years of age and her fathere [sic] is now living in retirement at Denver, Colo. 
    
The early life of Dr. Ernest E. Davis was spent in Littleton, Ill., where he was born October 29, 1875. He was educated in the public schools of that place, in Rushville High School and the Northern Indiana Normal School, receiving his professional training at the Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, from which he graduated in the class of 1900. After an initial practice in Chicago for six months he settled in Avon, Ill., which has responded generously and with fitting discernment to his professional skill and good fellowship. Dr. Davis has claims to many interests outside of his life work, is a stanch supporter of local Republican politics, a popular member of the Knights of Pythias, and an active worker in the Universalist Church. He has the elements of pronounced success, and should reap the most splendid compensations of his fascinating and ever widening profession.