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Henry County, Indiana
Bios
Arch Davis
It is always a matter of general
interest to follow the successive stages by which a successful business man rises to his present position. When Arch Davis of Newcastle was sixteen years of
age he accepted an
opportunity to work as delivery boy for Horace Johnson, a local grocery man. One year at that, and he took
inside work in the
clothing house of R. D. Goodwin.
He was
not assigned a
definite task, but was told
to make himself generally useful,
and his name was put on the payroll at four dollars a week. That experience lasted also a year. Then followed a period
of three months
which was more
fruitful of experience than
wages, but gave him a good
knowledge of western life. He spent those months chiefly at Cheyenne, Wyoming.
On returning to
Newcastle he
worked in a garage, drove an
express wagon, and was also
night clerk in the Bundy Hotel. For one year he was employed as timekeeper
by the contractor
who built
the Maxwell Automobile
Factory. There were other
minor forms of employment, but they may perhaps go without special mention.
At present Mr. Davis is junior partner and president of the corporation known as Clift & Davis, the leading firm of
Newcastle shoe merchants. He
got his first experience in
the shoe business with his father
under the name Davis & Sons, with a store on Broad Street. He spent two years there, learned the business, later
sold his interest and went to
work for Gaddis &
Gotfried, another firm of shoe merchants.
He was also manager for
three months of the Lawson
Shoe Store on Broad Street,
until that business was sold. He was again in the employ of the firm of Smith & Gotfried for a short time, and
was then employed
by the firm of Clift &
Hayes. When that business was
incorporated Mr. Davis
acquired a thousand dollars
worth of the stock, and in February,
1916, he and Mr. Clift bought out
the Hayes interests, leaving the present firm of Clift & Davis.
Mr. Davis was born at Newcastle in September, 1888, a son of Mark and Jennie
(Allender) Davis. He grew up in this city and attended the public
schools, including two years of high school work before he began his
career as a delivery boy.
Mr. Davis represents one of the oldest families of Henry County. His
greatgrandfather Aquila Davis, a native of Virginia, who married
Lucretia Hatfield, came to Henry County, Indiana, in 1826 and settled
at Richwood in Fall Creek Township. He died there in 1850. Among their
nine children was Aquila Davis, Jr., grandfather of Arch Davis. Aquila,
Jr., was born in Ohio December 6, 1813, and was about thirteen years
old when the family came to Henry County. He cleared up a farm in the
midst of the woods three miles north of Newcastle, and it is said that
he paid for eighty acres of land with money he received from two years
wages at $150 a year. Later he acquired another farm of 160 acres, and
prospered and reared his family there. In the fall of 1879 he moved to
Newcastle, and lived retired. He married Linne Harvey, who died in
August, 1879, the mother of six children, the youngest of whom was Mark
Davis, father of the Newcastle merchant.
Mr. Arch Davis married in May, 1912, Miss Mabel Van Camp, daughter of
Charles Pinckney Van Camp. They have two children, March C., born in
1913, and Ellen Jane, born in 1915. Mr. Davis is a republican, as was
his father and grandfather before him, and is affiliated with the
Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and the Christian Church.
Indiana and Indianans By Jacob Piatt Dunn, George William Harrison
Kemper
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