Strangers to Us All Lawyers and Poetry

Will A. Davis

(1857-    )
Indiana

Thos. W. Herringshaw (ed.) , Local and National Poets of America 303
(Chicago: American Publishers' Association, 1890)

"Will A. Davis was born in 1857 in Orville, Ohio. About 1874 he moved to Noble County, Ind., where he worked with his father in the plastering trade. He later taught school in Noble and Whitley counties. He subsequently studied law under Joseph W. Adair and was admittted to the Indiana bar. After two years of wandering and gathering experiences about which he wrote, Davis married Mary Sunderland. He was a Methodist missionary in the Indian territory and also worked in Unalaska. He did newspaper work in Fort Wayne and afterward moved to San Jose, Calif." [Donald E. Thompson, Indiana Authors and Their Books 1917-1966 156 (Crawfordsville, Indiana: Wabash College, 1974)]

According to a second source, Davis was born at Etna, Indiana on March 26, 1857. [Thos. W. Herringshaw (ed.) , Local and National Poets of America 303 (Chicago: American Publishers' Association, 1890)] [Herringshaw says of Davis: "This gentleman resides in Columbia City, where he practices the profession of attorney at law, and contributes under several noms de plume to many of our standard publications. Mr. Davis has published a small volume of miscellaneous poems and hopes soon to issue another voluem. He has but recently commenced to write verse." Id.]

Poetry

Will A. Davis, The Trial of Jesus, and Other Poems, (Columbia City, Indiana, 1889)