Copyright notice

This article is from the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, 6 volumes, edited by William S. Powell. Copyright ©1979-1996 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. For personal use and not for further distribution. Please submit permission requests for other use directly to the publisher.

Printer-friendly page

Davidson, Alexander Caldwell

26 Dec. 1826–6 Nov. 1897

Alexander Caldwell Davidson, congressman and cotton planter, was born in Mecklenburg County near Charlotte. The names of his parents do not appear to be recorded. The family moved about 1830 to Marengo County, Ala. After secondary and elementary education in the local schools, he entered the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa in 1844 at age sixteen and was graduated four years later. For several years he read law under attorneys in Mobile, but there is no record of his being admitted to the bar or of his practicing law. Instead, he acquired extensive land in Perry County, near Uniontown, Ala., and became a successful cotton planter.

Davidson's general interest in public affairs led him into a political career that occupied his major attention for a decade. He was first elected to the Alabama legislature (1880–81), then to the state senate for four years (1882–85). In 1885 he was a successful Democratic candidate for the United States Congress, where he served four years as a representative from Alabama in the Forty-ninth and Fiftieth sessions (1885–89).

Afterward he returned to Westwood, his home near Uniontown, and resumed his farming operations. He died there and was buried in the Holy Cross Cemetery of the Davidson Memorial Church, Uniontown.

References:

Biog. Dir. Am. Cong. (1950).

Who Was Who in America (1967).

Additional Resources:

"Davidson, Alexander Caldwell, (1826 - 1897)." Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Washington, D.C.: The Congress. http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=D000082 (accessed February 17, 2014).

Palmer, Thomas Waverly. A register of the officers and students of the University of Alabama, 1831-1901. Tuscaloosa, Ala.: The University. 1901. 85, 299. https://archive.org/stream/registerofoffice00univrich#page/84/mode/2up (accessed February 17, 2014).

"Davidson, Alexander Caldwell." History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography vol. 3. 1921. 455-456. http://digital.archives.alabama.gov/cdm/ref/collection/dictionary/id/956 (accessed February 17, 2014).

"Alexander Caldwell Davidson." The Alabama Historical Quarterly 9, no. 4, (Winter 1947). 585-587. http://digital.archives.alabama.gov/cdm/ref/collection/quarterly/id/616 (accessed February 17, 2014).

United States Department of the Interior. National Park Service. National Register of Historic Places Inventory - Nomination Form: Westwood. By W. Warner Floyd, Montgomery, Alabama. September 28, 1974. http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NRHP/Text/74000433.pdf (accessed February 17, 2014).

Drake, Eleanor C. Perry County. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2010. http://books.google.com/books?id=UAD8kSSfwxAC&pg=PA21#v=onepage&q&f=false (accessed February 17, 2014).

Philip Henry Pitts Papers, 1814-1884 (collection no. 00602). The Southern Historical Collection. Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. http://www2.lib.unc.edu/mss/inv/p/Pitts,Philip_Henry.html (accessed February 17, 2014).

Origin - location: