Alexander Davis

Alexander Mathews Davis (January 17, 1833 – September 25, 1889) was a nineteenth-century politician and lawyer from Virginia. Davis served for two years in the Virginia Senate and briefly in the U.S. House of Representatives, before his opponent successfully contested the election result. Early and family life Born in Old Mount Airy, Virginia, Davis attended the old field schools and was privately tutored as a child. He later attended and graduated from Emory and Henry College, then read law. He married Mary Jane Dickenson Davis (1848 - 1896), daughter of Col. John Dickenson of Grayson County (and for whom Dickenson County was named upon its creation in 1880). They would have at least three sons: Albert Conley Davis (1869 - 1893), Joseph C Davis (1871 - 1888) and James Garnett Davis (1873 - 1931). Career Admitted to the bar in 1854, Davis began his private legal practice in Wytheville, Virginia, and later moved to Independence, Virginia.