Moses M. Davis

Moses Mitchell Davis (August 27, 1820 – May 1, 1888) was an American physician, Republican politician, and Wisconsin pioneer. He was a member of the Wisconsin Senate, representing Columbia County from 1857 through 1861, and served one term in the Wisconsin State Assembly, in 1856. He was also a regent of the University of Wisconsin, where he was instrumental in passage of a resolution in favor of co-education.

Early life and education Moses M. Davis was born in the town of Sharon, Vermont, in 1820. He was educated in the common schools and then attended Norwich University, beginning in 1837. While pursuing his education, he worked on farms in the summers and taught school in the winters. He began studying medicine and surgery under Dr. David Carlisle Joslyn at Waitsfield, Vermont, in 1843, and began attending medical lectures at Dartmouth College. He subsequently attended Vermont Medical College in Woodstock, Vermont, where he graduated in June 1846. He immediately began practicing medicine at Norwich, Vermont. While living in Vermont he also became a member of the Connecticut River Medical Society.

Political career

While living in Vermont, Davis became involved in politics, particularly in the cause of abolition. He was initially active in the Vermont organization of the Liberty Party. After that party faded, Davis became one of the leading organizers of the Free Soil Party (or Free Democrats) in Vermont in the early 1850s. He was a delegate to the National Free Democratic convention in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1852, and then served on the electoral slate for Free Soil presidential candidate John P. Hale.

In 1854, he moved west to Wisconsin, settling in the city of Portage, in Columbia County. He quickly became involved in Wisconsin politics with the Free Soil Party and its successor, the Republican Party, and was nominated for Wisconsin State Assembly in Columbia County's 1st Assembly district in 1855.

During that term in the Assembly, a massive railroad bribery scheme touched nearly every member of the Legislature. Davis was one of the few who was not bribed and voted against the railroad land grant.

Despite the railroad's efforts, Davis won election to the Wisconsin Senate in 1856 and was re-elected in 1858, representing all of Columbia County in the 1857, 1858, 1859, and 1860 legislative sessions. While serving in his first term in the Senate, Davis also became active as a newspaper editor with the Republican partisan paper the Portage City Record, in partnership with Andrew Jackson Turner.

During and after his time in the Senate, he served in a number of other appointed positions. He was appointed to the University of Wisconsin board of regents in 1858, by a vote of the Legislature, and was re-appointed in 1864. He declined reappointment to the board of regents after the university's restructuring in 1866. In the meantime, he was appointed commissioner for the Indian population near Green Bay in 1861, and was then appointed draft commissioner for Columbia County in 1862. In 1863 he moved to Appleton, Wisconsin, to serve as trustee of lands for improvements on the Fox River. In Appleton, he also became a trustee of Lawrence University, serving on that board until 1870.