Biography

L. H. Davis

Source: Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northeast Arkansas, Poinsett County; 1889 The Goodspeed Publishing Co.

L. H. Davis, M. D., physician and surgeon, Harrisburg, Ark. The above mentioned gentleman is one of the most successful and prominent physicians in Poinsett County, and is ever to be found by the bedside of sick and suffering humanity. He was born in Ozark County, Mo., on the 22d of December, 1858, and is the son of Dr. Newland A. and Eliza N. (Drake) Davis, natives of Tennessee. [For further particulars of parents see sketch of John C. Davis.] Dr. L. H. Davis was the fifth of six living children born to his parents and their names appear in the following order: Mrs. E. Frierson, wife of J. C. Frierson, and now residing in Jonesboro, Ark.; Mrs. Alice Legg, wife of D. H. Legg, who is a descendant of one of the oldest families of Cross County, and is magistrate of that county; Mrs. M. A. Gilliland, wife of the present school commissioner of Poinsett County; Thomas L., married and living in Harrisburg, is a medical student; L. H., and John C., a druggist at Harrisburg. Dr. L. H. Davis always had delicate health, and spent much of his time during boyhood in attending school. At the age of seventeen years he entered as clerk the drugstore of Dr. D. A. Graves at Forest City, and remained in that position for three years. During his twenty-first year the Doctor taught school in Woodruff County at Pumpkin Bend, and at the same time began the study of medicine. The following year he read medicine under the tutelage of Dr. Whitsett, at Marion, Ark, and during 1882 and 1883 he attended the Memphis Medical Collage. He then practiced one year in the Little River Country, in Eastern Poinsett County, after which he returned to the same college and graduated in the class of 1885. In the same year he came to Bay Village, Cross County, and began the practice of his profession, which he continued for eighteen months. He then came to Harrisburg, where he has remained ever since, and where he enjoys a large and paying practice. In February, 1887, he wedded Miss Lillian Florence Watkins, daughter of Prof. Watkins, president of Marshall Institute. They were married at Memphis, where Mrs. Davis' family still reside. Mrs. Davis' sister, Mrs. Fanny Anderson, of Millington, Tenn., is the possessor of one of the most noted madstones in that State. It is an heirloom of the Watkins family. To the Doctor and wife has been born one child, Willie Mary W., a sweet little girl of about twelve months. Dr. Davis is medical examiner and a member of the K. of H., at Harrisburg, and is a conservative Democrat.