John N. Davis. Earnest and effective service as a teacher in the public schools of Oklahoma has given to Mr. Davis no little prestige in educational circles in the state, and his secure place in popular esteem is indicated by his having been called upon to represent Sequoyah County in the Fifth General Assembly of the State Legislature, to which he was elected in 1914 and in which he proved a loyal, progressive and judicious worker on the floor of the lower house and in the deliberations of the various committees to which he was assigned. He maintains his residence at Sallisaw, Sequoyah County, and is a leading representative of the pedagogic profession in that county.

John N. Davis was born at Huntsville, the judicial center of Madison County, Arkansas, in the year 1881, and was the first in order of birth of fifteen children born to Jos. W. and Joanna (Powell) Davis, the other, surviving children being as here noted: Zemri is principal of the high school at Gore, Sequoyah County, Oklahoma; James B. is a prosperous agriculturist in the State of Oregon; Albert is a successful farmer near Braggs, Muskogee County, Oklahoma, as is also Oswald T.; and Charles C., Luther, Ollie and Nettie remain at the parental home, near the village of Braggs, this state. The father of Mr. Davis was born in Illinois and became one of the pioneer farmers of Madison County, Arkansas, where he established his residence about the year 1872 and where he remained until his removal to Oklahoma. His wife is a native of Arkansas, her father having been a sterling pioneer of that state and having served as a valiant soldier of the Union in the Civil war.

To the public schools of Arkansas and Oklahoma John N. Davis is indebted for his early educational discipline, and in 1906 he completed a course in the High School Department of Hiram-Lydia College, at Altus, Arkansas, after which he attended the school of mechanical engineering of the University of Arkansas for one year. For six years Mr. Davis was successfully engaged in teaching in the schools of his native state, and an equal period of service in this line has been given by him during the period of his residence in Oklahoma, within whose borders he established his home in 1908, the year following the admission of the state to the Union. For four terms he held the position of principal of the public schools at Roland, Sequoyah County, and thereafter he served one term as president of the high school at Gans, this county. While a resident of Roland he was called upon also to serve as township clerk and as justice of the peace. In 1914 further public honors were conferred upon him, in his election as representative of the same county in the Lower House of the State Legislature, in the Fifth General Assembly of which he served as a member of the following named house committees: Education, General Agriculture, Congressional Redistricting, Public Buildings, Fish and Game, and Relation to the Five Civilized Tribes and other Indians. Mr. Davis introduced a bill for the enabling of county commissioners to levy a tax of one-half mill for the acquiring of building sites and the erection thereon of homes for neglected and dependent children, to whom is thus granted also the privilege of attending school. Another bill introduced by him makes provision for the uniform rate of three per cent interest on daily deposits of all state and county funds. As a legislator he manifested special interest in the furtherance of measures tending to advance the general educational facilities and systems of the state. He supported measures for the benefit of the Northeastern State Normal School, at Tahlequah, in which he intends to complete his training for his profession, and for other educational institutions in his section of the state, He was particularly active in promoting measures providing for the county unit system in educational work.

Mr. Davis is a democrat in his political allegiance and both he and his wife hold membership in the Christian Church. At Roland he is affiliated with the lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and has passed the various official chairs in the same. He is a prominent member of the Sequoyah County Educational Association and is identified also with the Oklahoma Educational Association.

At Ozark,’ Arkansas, in 1906, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Davis to Miss Emma Eichenberger, her maternal grandfather, Rev. F. M. Payne, D. D., having been a pioneer missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, among the Indians of Indian Territory, where he was stationed for varying intervals at Fort Gibson, Port Coffey, Fort Towson and other points, his wife, who was one of the revered pioneer women of the territory, having died in 1914, at the venerable age of ninety-two years and having long survived her husband. Mr. and Mrs. Davis have two children, Lucille and Edward.