William L. Davidson

WILLIAM L. DAVIDSON, county clerk of Sheridan County, is one of the oldest members of the "Born and Raised Club" at Hoxie, and the Davidson family have their full share of participation in all those early events and experiences that make up the first chronicles of Sheridan County's history.

Mr. Davidson was born at old Kenneth January 6, 1883. At that time his father was serving as first probate judge of the county. He comes of an old Northern Ohio family, one that in the early days was prominently identified with the region around Cleveland. His grandfather, William A. Davidson, who was of Scotch-Irish ancestry, was born in 1832 and for many years served the Methodist Episcopal Church as a minister in Northern Ohio. He died at Cuyahoga Falls, near Cleveland, in 1897.

Samuel P. Davidson, father of William L., was born at Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, in 1857. He lived at Cleveland to the age of twenty-one, and entered railroad service there. In 1879 he came west to Kansas, homesteaded 160 acres in Sheridan County, as did his wife, and took a timber claim of 160 acres. They proved up these three quarter sections and made their home on the farm until 1897. Mr. Davidson, however, was more than a mere farmer and early citizen. He was postmaster of Hoxie during the two administrations of President Cleveland. He also founded and was editor of the Hoxie Democrat, publishing it from the early eighties until 1893. In 1882 he was the first regularly elected probate judge of Sheridan County. When he sold his farm and other local interests in 1901 he moved to Kansas City, where he re-entered the railroad service. He died at Kansas City in 1903. He was a democrat and was affiliated with Hoxie Lodge No. 348, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. Samuel P. Davidson married Dolly Jane Newcomb, a native of New York State, born in 1855, and is still living in Kansas City. She was the mother of five children: William L.; Crystal, wife of W. A. Reid, a railroad man at Fairbury, Nebraska; Mandane, wife of Harry Smith, a resident of Kansas City, Missouri, but during war times employed in a Detroit automobile factory; Grover, who was in one of the great shipbuilding yards at Philadelphia; and Frank, a carpenter living in Kansas City, Missouri.

William L. Davidson attended the rural schools of Sheridan County and left home soon after his parents returned to Kansas City. In 1906 he came to Hoxie, and for two years was in the hardware business and for seven years was a rural mail carrier. In 1916 he was elected county clerk as a democrat, his present term expiring January 13, 1919. January 1, 1913, at Hoxie, Mr. Davidson married Miss Ruth Beckner, daughter of James L. Beckner and member of one of the prominent families of Hoxie. Mr. and Mrs. Davidson have one son, James Williams, born October 31, 1914.

Pages 2256-2257.