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Civil war veteran
Railroad passenger agent
Theater company road manager
Trotting horse & dog breeder
Revenue service agent
Chicago Theater palace owner-manager
Club man and book collector
Minstrel road company manager
Citizen of Elkhart, Indiana, Chicago, Illinois,
Natchez, Mississippi & Crown Point, Indiana
Husband of light opera celebrity
Gentleman farmer
International traveler
Villain, narcissist, ass & charmer
Benefactor
of many
Father & Grandfather
Friend of actors, journalists, railroad executives, horse breeders, playwrights,
artists, authors, and clergymen
Member of Klaw & Erlanger theatrical
syndicate
Boyhood
Iroquois Theater manager/co-owner William James Davis was born to a Danville,
New York farmer who tried his hand at running a mill before becoming road
boss for railroad construction crews for the Michigan Central Company in
southern Michigan and northern Indiana. Will was born during the family's
years in the Ann Arbor, Michigan area (1836–1851)
but spent his boyhood where the family settled after
1852 — Elkhart, Indiana.
New York native, Thomas
Gleason Davis (1808–1883), and Irish immigrant, Anna
Isabella McWhorter (1811–1896) had married in 1831. Over
the next sixteen years they would have five children:
Marie Eunice Davis (1834–1871)
Another daughter, name unknown
Scott Davis (b. 1840)
William James Davis (1844–1919)
Thomas Gleason Davis Jr. (1847–1867)
While starting their family, Thomas supervised the construction of track
on the Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana
Railway (later consolidated under the name Lake
Shore & Michigan Southern), including the Three
Rivers and Jackson, Michigan branches, and the
Airline. His family was proud that he took the
first work train into Chicago from the east.
In Elkhart, Thomas operated a hardware store for
a time, and served as a justice of the peace. He
organized the city's first Masonic lodge. During
the civil war he oversaw construction of railway in
Tennessee and after the war he and his youngest son,
Thomas jr., worked on building a rail line for a
coal mine in Murphysboro, Illinois. While working
in Illinois in 1867, Thomas jr. died of malaria in
Grand Tower, IL. In 1880 Will's
parents lived on Lexington St., then called Pigeon St.
A summary of Elkhart, Indiana in 1880 appeared in
The Inter Ocean newspaper in Chicago.
It was reported in 1903 that Will Davis Jr. had operated a
grocery store on Center St. in Elkhart around 1860
but he was only sixteen years old then and,
according to the 1860 U.S. Census, wasn't yet
working. His father operated a business, and
his brother Scott worked for their father. Two
years later Will left Elkhart behind to join the Union navy at age eighteen
(though he'd later claim he'd been only fifteen) but retained connections with Elkhart
friends and acquaintances throughout his life. Among these were
Orville
Chamberlain, Elkhart's only Medal of Honor recipient, band instrument
pioneer,
Charles Girard Conn, Cyrus D. Roys and Philo Morehous of the Lakeshore Railroad.
All are buried in the same cemetery as Davis. Another was
Herbert Bucklen who lived in
Chicago; he and Davis exchanged Christmas cards..
At the close of the Civil war, following the sinking
and burning of the
USS Blackhawk on which he had served as a payroll
clerk, Davis first located in Chicago. While there he worked at a tonic bottling company and for
Henry Hobart Taylor of Aultman & Taylor who in 1866 provided a letter of recommendation.
By 1869 he'd moved on to Natchez, Mississippi for a three-year stint as a revenue agent with
the Revenue Service. (In his later years he'd say he spent four years there but it was
only three.)
Revenue agents with Revenue Service in Natchez after the Civil War
After the Civil War Davis joined his former navy boss, Charles Kirkendall, working as a
revenue stamp collector
(see picture at left and additional information below).
Davis was nominated on January 15, 1872 as an
assessor in the 1st Mississippi District.
Will would later claim to have co-founded the first Republican newspaper in
Mississippi, a weekly named The New South
(1869–1877). If Davis participated, his
role was not recorded; the only names I find
associated with both Davis and the publication are two of his
coworkers at the Revenue service, William Noonan and
Allison Foster. The owner and editor of
New South was Charles
D. Reppy (1846–1918), a fellow Civil War veteran, who was also
associated with the Jefferson County Leader in
Missouri and would later publish the Tombstone Epitaph and
Florence Enterprise newspapers in
Arizona. The New South came into
existence as a radical republican voice around 1869.▼1 Editor Reppy was an
avid supporter of Mississippi senator
Adelbert Ames. Perhaps it was because of
his association with Reppy that Davis petitioned
Ames to help him get a job selling railroad land out
west.
In 1872 Ames corresponded with Davis, by then living in Chicago, about needing to find a
house in Natchez. His fellow republican senator from Mississippi, James Alcorn, had
made a public issue of Ames not having a home in the state he represented. Though
Ames' official residence was in Natchez, when the Senate was not in session he lived in
Massachusetts with his wife at her wealthy father's estate.
Ames letter to Davis about finding a house in Natchez.
Pictured:
Will J. Davis (1844–1919, Michigan)
— Revenue Service▼3
Charles C. Walden (b. 1846, Massachusetts) —
Natchez alderman, school superintendent & Revenue Service
Edward J. Castello (1817–1881, Pennsylvania)
— Natchez postmaster
Thomas Reber — Revenue Service & later becoming a judge in Natchez
William Noonan (c.
1837–1890, Ireland) — Natchez alderman, county
treasurer, sheriff &
Union veteran of Illinois 28th infantry
George R. Cannon (b.1843, New York) — Revenue Service
Lawrence H. Clapp — Natchez alderman
& Revenue Service
M.A.C. Hussey — Natchez alderman,
circuit clerk & Revenue Service
Fredrick Jordan (b.1850, Ohio) — Revenue Service
Henry C. Griffin (b.1845, Mississippi) — Natchez
city clerk
Another of Will's adventures while in the south was
riding on the luxurious
Robert E Lee steamship during a famous summertime 1870
race against the steamship Natchez from New Orleans
to St. Louis. The owner/pilot of the
Robert E. Lee was named John W. Cannon and one of
Davis' coworkers at the Revenue Service was a George
R. Cannon. If George was related to John, it
would explain how Davis came to get a ticket
(although one account disputed that passage was in
limited supply).
Two years of railroading
then on to theatrical industry
While working for the railway, Will serviced the account of circus
pioneer,
William Cole, under the tutelage of one of Cole's
managers, William Hayden. Hayden recommended
Davis to Cole and in 1874 Davis was hired to work as a
clerk for Cole's Adelphi Theater.
From that experience came his first job as a theater
company advance man, working for the legendary
Jack Haverly.
His first assignment from Haverly, in 1876, was
taking Haverly & McGuire's Georgia Minstrel troupe
to California. In less than a year he was back
at the Lake Shore & Michigan in Chicago working as
an assistant general passenger agent.
In 1878 Will spent May and June traveling to Australia
and New Zealand as a publicity agent for a consortium of
railway and steamship companies who wanted to promote
American routes. Members in the syndicate included Union
& Central Pacific railways, Pacific Mail Steamship
Company, Rock Island, Northwestern, Lake Shore &
Michigan Southern and New York Central.
He returned to work for Haverly as an advance man,
ushering Colonel Mapleson's Her Majesty's Grand
Opera Company and Lester Wallack.
After 1879 Will was firmly planted in the theater industry but retained many friends and
contacts in the railway industry, corresponding with numerous passenger agents throughout
his life, even taking a few cross-country train excursions with groups of passenger agents.
Marriage & fatherhood: Jessie and Willie
One evening in 1879 a Chicago Tribune employee,
Edward Markham (Hearst journalist?), took Davis to a
performance of HMS Pinafore by organist Arthur
Creswold's church choir at Story & Camp.
(So it was reported in Davis' obituary in 1919.
Story and Camp was a prominent piano manufacturer
but perhaps they maintained performance rooms at
their facility.)
Davis was impressed by the Church Choir group and persuaded Haverly to take them on as commercial
troupe, first on the road, then in Chicago at
Haverly's Theater when Will became the assistant
house manager. One contralto in the group,
Jessie Bartlett (1859–1905), who played
the role of Buttercup, particularly caught
Will's eye.
In 1880 Jessie Bartlett and Will married. Their first
child was born two years later but died in infancy.
Their only child to survive to adulthood,
William Jessie Davis Jr.
(1883–1965), was nicknamed "Willie."
(He worked in the ticket office at the Iroquois and was
present the day of the fire but his
name was kept out of the press. We
only know of his presence at the Iroquois because
his father tried to demonstrate his empathy for the
victims' families by saying that his son too had
been in danger.)
New prosperity
In May 1887, with William Cole's financial backing,
Davis leased the
Haymarket
to open his first theater. He hired his nephew from
Elkhart, IN, Samuel W. Pickering (1865–1938), son of
his late older sister, Marie Davis Pickering
(1834–1871), married to Anna Hamlin, to work as assistant treasurer at the
Haymarket, under George Fair.▼2
In addition to a farm in Crown Point, Indiana
southeast of Chicago,
Will and Jessie owned a home in Chicago at 4740 Grand Blvd.
In 1889 Will took six-year-old Willie along on a
month-long business trip to California, Will's first
return visit to the state since he was there with
the Georgia Minstrels in 1875. Jessie was
performing there with the Bostonians and Davis and
Alf Hayman were responsible for the Bostonians west
coast tour.
Also in 1889, Davis sold the Haymarket to Kohl &
Castle but continued managing it for several years,
while co-managing the
Columbia Theater with Alf Hayman.
The Haymarket burned in 1893 and the Columbia in
1900, both while managed by Davis. That same year
Will became manager of the Illinois in Chicago with
a small ownership percentage. His partners were
other members of the Klaw & Erlanger theater
syndicate.
Breeding trotters & dogs
at Willowdale Farm in Crown Point, Indiana
Davis's involvement with trotters and harness racing included friendships with legendary harness driver, "Little" John Splan,
and Cleveland, Ohio breeder and industrialist, William G. Pollock.
A handful of letters from John Splan to Pollock and Davis.
In 1891 Will boasted that Willowdale was the only stock farm in the country
with electric lights. Like he knew. Hyperbole aside, he might
actually have had a bit of insider information: one of Thomas Edison's
business cards was found in Davis' correspondence
decades after his death. I held it in my
hands and couldn't help feeling a rush of awe. Things owned
and touched by The Wizard of Menlo Park are supposed to be in
museums, not nestled within a two-foot stack of rodent-grawed
envelopes and mouse droppings. We sold antiques for a decade but
few other treasure-hunting moments come close in my memories.
In September 1896 Mr. Fire-Magnet experienced the fifth fire in his life, in addition to
three theaters and a steamship: the hay barn at his farm in Crown Point was
destroyed, reportedly by tramps. Loss: $1,200 ($34,000 today).
The following year he purchased a white Arabian mare from Elkhart, IN man,
Melvin Benham (1856–1899).▼4 In 1904 English actress
Lillie Langtry reportedly purchased five horses from Willowdale and had
them shipped to her breeding farm in England.
The photos with Davis and groups of dogs and horses were taken at Willowdale in 1907. Chicago
journalist and poet, Eugene Field,
had a terrier bred by Davis and named after His wife,
Jessie Bartlett Davis.
The hand-colored photograph below of Will astride a horse, presumably one from his farm, Willowdale,
in Crown Point, Indiana, where he raised trotting horses and dogs. Based on a guess at his
age in the photo, it was taken around 1895. In 1891 an adjacent plot of land was added to the
original 80 acres that had been purchased in the fall of 1889. At that
time Davis was working with a well known horseman of Crown Point, Captain
Rodman H. Wells, a retired Union army officer. Davis and Jessie owned 12 mastiffs, ten fox
terriers, two collies and a bull terrier. In 1893 he sold thirty-two
horses and used the revenue to purchase a second farm in Crown Point, adding 520
acres, bringing their land in Crown Point to 930 acres. Additional
acreage was purchased in 1909. In 1899 Will had ten brood mares and a stallion
named Will J. Davis that raced that year for his second time, logging a 2.17
mile.. Davis also owned
a horse named after his business financier, circus man
William W. Cole.
By 1912 there were twenty-four horses at Willowdale.
Iroquois Theater fire
In 1903 the Iroquois Theater was completed. For Davis it was a lifetime achievement
that became a lifetime failure.
Davis' view of himself as a persecuted victim, unfairly blamed for
events over which he had no control, was certainly influenced by his view of women.
As his remarks in an 1895 newspaper article reveal, he saw women as weak-willed, no
good in a pinch, too apt to give in to primitive instincts. The predominantly female audience
at the Iroquois Theater thus was too dithery to respond wisely in an emergency and was
responsible for their own deaths. He was but an innocent babe.
Lots of experience but maybe not enough that was applicable.
Though newspapers sometimes referred to Davis as the grandfather of
theater in Chicago, when he added the Iroquois to
his list of theaters to manage, Davis had
fewer than five years of hands-on theater management
experience, and perhaps was not
constitutionally well suited to the task.
A majority of his experience was as a free-wheeling advance
agent — a far cry from managing employees or the details of
administration, maintenance and oversight.
Davis knew advertising, promotion and how to horse trade for the
best deal on both. He had strong opinions about decor and comfort
in a theater, and delivering a strong performance, but he lacked the
experience of a Harry Powers (a long time owner/manager of Powers
Theater and co-owner in the Iroquois), on running a house. Davis
relied on a few key managers for day-to-day operations. That
partnership seemed to work well for the Illinois Theater. When
inspectors examined Chicago theaters after the Iroquois fire, the
Illinois Theater managed by Davis and Powers was found to be one of
the best in the city insofar as fire-fighting preparedness. Perhaps
the Iroquois would eventually have evolved into a similar state of
readiness. Or not. The success of the Illinois might have had less to do
with Davis than with his secretary and future wife, Nellie O'Hagan.
The Nellie factor
Even allowing for bad timing, it is incongruous that the man who did an
exemplary job of equipping the Illinois for fire prevention, did next to nothing at the Iroquois.
One possible explanation may have to do
with Davis' secretary, thirty-seven-year-old
Mary Ellen "Nellie" O'Hagan (1866–1947),
who
worked in the offices at the Illinois Theater. (I
have found no indication that a secretary was employed at the Iroquois to
assist business manager Thomas Noonan. It seems likely Nellie's job
description expanded to include the Iroquois.) There is evidence that
the passion for excellence in his theaters that Davis expressed in promotional
material was limited to what could be seen and admired; for less visible
matters, his extraordinary frugality was exhibited in years of newspaper
tidbits. Nellie may have been the only one he didn't micromanage when
it came to spending money.
In 1903, Nellie had worked for Davis for a decade and their relationship
was close enough that in 1907, two years after the
death of his wife and after he was acquitted of the
Iroquois manslaughter charge, he married her. It seems
possible that Nellie's presence on the premises at
the Illinois might have resulted in purchase
requisitions being handled more quickly and reliably
than they were at the Iroquois. If the fireman at
the Illinois needed more equipment, for example,
perhaps he was able to stroll up to Nellie's desk with
a list and, to extend that scenario, maybe expect more
dependable results than giving it to Davis. Her level of
purchasing authority can only be guessed at but her influence
and proximity to Davis is a known factor. It may have given her the
opportunity to facilitate decisions and affect more reliable follow-through
than Noonan was able to manage at the Iroquois.
Davis was an entrepreneur, a risk taker, a starter.
Perhaps he was more skilled at throwing balls in the
air than at juggling them. Nellie may have
been his master juggler. If so, it might be that the biggest mistake
Davis made with the Iroquois was in not appointing
Nellie as business manager at the Iroquois
instead of Thomas Noonan.
It should also be noted that
Nellie's fiancé had died three months before the
Iroquois fire so she may have been grieving during
the last two months of the Iroquois' construction.
She probably worked throughout but her effectiveness
might not have been what it was when the Illinois
went up.
Denial. Narcissism?
Just three days after the Iroquois Theater fire,
while horse-drawn funeral processions still wound
their way through Chicago, Davis whined and
groused to the press. His other theater, the
Illinois, was on a list of seventeen theaters to be
closed for violating Chicago's fire ordinance.
As far as Davis was concerned, that was the only
closing that mattered. He viewed it as
personal persecution. He grumbled about people kicking a man when he's down.
Today an army of social media warriors would uncover
the
many prior fires in his life and ridicule him
into shamed silence. In the early aughts, in a
world filled with old wood-framed buildings, spotty
building codes, with heating, cooking and
illumination provided by flame-based devices, fires
were as common as rain. Whatever folders
containing Davis clippings lurked in journalists
morgues were maintained by drama critics, not
reporters working the crime beat. 1904 newspapers
were silent about Davis' long history with fire and
Davis was spared his due condemnation.
When the Iroquois Theater trials were over and Davis
no longer faced the possibility of imprisonment, he
elaborated, demonstrating that his views had not
been altered by four years of court news. (See
clipping at left.) If anything, his
perception of himself as a persecuted victim had
only grown stronger. The victims were responsible
for their own deaths because they stampeded, and the
ushers were also at fault because they "lost their
reason." Davis' attitude may have lasted until
his death, as hinted at by his son Willie who
commented then that his father was never the same
after the Iroquois Theater fire.
In an interview granted to a hometown biographer several years later, Davis
declared that his indictment and prosecution were the "result of a
vindictive plot on the part of a political newspaper clique in Chicago
determined to ruin him financially." Plot? Clique?
Financial ruin? Chicago mayor Harrison was in
a political battle that saw the end of his
presidential bid in 1904. Did Davis get sucked
into that battle, buffeted about like a falling leaf
in a tornado of powerful influences? Sounds
like an interesting film storyline but, it didn't
happen. I've poured over the relevant
newspaper stories probably more often than anyone
else on the planet and it just didn't happen.
A man accused of contributing to the death of six
hundred people could not have received fairer
treatment by the press; in modern times a public relations expert would charge a large price
for such a feat. As to financial ruin: when the trials were over, Davis still owned
his home in Chicago's Kenwood community on Grand Blvd and his thousand-acre gentleman's farm
in Crown Point, Indiana.
Photos below are ephemera related to Davis' book collecting, a hobby shared with two of his attorneys,
Levy Mayer and
Alfred S. Austrian
1. A speech given by journalist Henry Grady in
December, 1886 is commonly credited with having
given birth to the phrase "New South." Grady may
have been responsible for the best-known
definition but other journalists cultivated the
term over a decade earlier. From 1862 to 1866
there was a South Carolina newspaper named
New South and Charles Douglas Reppy's paper
went by that name as early as 1869.
History, however, finds more references to
Reppy's days with Doc Holliday, the Earp's, and
the Apaches in Tombstone than to his time in
Natchez.
2. Samuel Pickering returned to Elkhart and in 1894 married Kentuckian Anna L. Hamlin (1866–1955).
The theater skills learned at the Haymarket and from his uncle Will didn't go to waste; from 1900
until around 1915 he and Anna lived in South Bend, Indiana where he
managed the The Auditorium Theater (located on the site of the old Robertson's Department Store) and Oliver
Theater. Anna worked with Sam in the theater too and became a well known figure behind the ticket counter.
By 1916 the pair returned to Elkhart and lived on S. West Blvd until the 1930s.
Their home at 4435 S. West Blvd still stands,
just outside the hilltop entrance to McNaughton Park.
(The original dark colored brick and shake siding is
today painted pale yellow.)
3.
Davis, Cannon and Jordan lived
at same boarding house in Natchez, Mississippi, next door to two other
Revenue Service employees, Charles Kirkendall, who had been Davis' superior
officer in the Union navy during the war, on board the
USS Blackhawk, and office supervisor, Simon Manly Preston (1821–1919).
4. Benham operated a livery stable in Elkhart (my hometown, where there is a street
named after him). Like Davis, he was buried at Grace Lawn Cemetery here. He died seven years after his
horse transaction with Davis. His leg had been broken in a runaway-horse incident and amputation didn't stop
the spread of tetanus. He left behind an $8,000 estate (adjusted
for inflation: $247,000).
5. Ellendale was the name of a farm purchased
independently by Mary Ellen O'Hagan Davis, Will's second wife, using her own
funds. I've not yet learned whether she purchased the land before or after their
marriage. Will referred to all of his property in Crown Point, Indiana as "Willowdale,"
though the 1,000 acres was made up of a half dozen separate farms, and he did not
publically mention Ellendale. During the last years of his life he preferred to
spend most of his time on Grand Blvd in Chicago while Nellie preferred to stay at
Ellendale in Crown Point. After his death Nellie and their friends referred only
to Ellendale and most or all of the originally purchased acreage that comprised
Willowdale was sold.
Jessie Bartlett Davis,
wife of Iroquois Theater manager
Detective William
Pinkerton
Nellie married her boss
Other discussions you might find interesting
irqbookcol irqirs irqtrotting irqdavfla irqrails
Story 2626
A note about sourcing. When this
project began, I failed to anticipate the day might come when a
more scholarly approach would be called for. When my
mistake was recognized I faced a decision: go back and spend years creating source lists for every page, or go
forward and try to cover more of the people and circumstances
involved in the disaster. Were I twenty years younger, I'd
have gone back, but in recognition that this project will end when I do, I chose to go forward.
These pages will provide enough information, it is hoped, to
provide subsequent researchers with additional information.
I would like to
hear from you if you have additional info about an Iroquois victim, or find an error,
and you're invited to visit the
comments page to share stories and observations about the Iroquois Theater fire.
