Doc Davis
A Peterboro Last
In my living room, I have a medicine bottle that reads:
GEO. W. DAVIS, M.D.
LICENSED PHARMACIST
PETERBORO, NEW YORK
"Doc" Davis delivered my mother as well as her brothers and sisters, so this old bottle has a special meaning to me.
George Wellington Davis was born January 9, 1866, in Little Falls, Herkimer County, New York, the only child of Simeon
and Nora (Ginney) Davis. When George was two years old, his parents decided to move to Smithfield, where Simeon became a
successful farmer on the Mile Strip. George was educated in the district schools and Evans Academy. At the age of 17, he
became a clerk in W. Emmett Cole's Peterboro drugstore, studying pharmacy on the side. Davis and W.D. Johnson formed a
partnership as druggists in 1887, and the next year George received his pharmacist's diploma. Two years later, he was
graduated from the University of Buffalo Medical School as a physician and surgeon. He bought out Johnson's interest in the
drugstore and began a long medical career in which he gained the confidence and respect of the citizens of Smithfield.
George W. Davis was married on October 20, 1891, to Nellie, adopted daughter of Edward and Rosetta (Hungerford)
Bliss. They had two children, Doris and Miles. Nellie died in 1914; on September 1, 1915 Davis married Mabel, daughter of
Charles and Eleanor (Reese) Wagoner. Two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, were born of this union.
After his second marriage, Dr. Davis lived in the last house on the east end of the village green, the remodeled Free
Church of Gerrit Smith. About 1932, the family moved to Oneida, prompting the following poem, written by my grandmother (
the authors grandmother), Margaret Davis Brooks.
TO OUR FAMILY DOCTOR
Oh: Doctor Davis, how we'll miss you
You are moving so we hear.
We've been lucky, yes, so lucky
To have a doctor live so near.
You have rode these hills and valleys
You've been faithful to us all.
Your whole life has been for service
You've answered too the poor man's call.
You'll be missed by many a townsman
When they call at the drugstore.
But we hope you won't forget us
When we call you to our door.
May good health be yours for years yet
May good luck follow you to the end.
May God bless you -- and your family --
Is the wish of one - A Friend.
On January 12, 1956, three days after his 90th birthday, Dr. George W. Davis died. Peterboro's last resident physician
is buried in our village cemetery.
Note: Doc Davis continued his practice while in Oneida. Sometime around 1948-49 my mother took me to his
office for a rash - she'd had me to my family physician who'd treated it with no success. Doc Davis went into a side room,
returning after a few minutes with a small container of salve. It was something he'd 'whipped up'. His advice - use it once per
day and don't tell your regular doctor because 'they don't understand these things'. Outcome? Two days later the rash was
gone, never to return. There is an argument for the old school...
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