WILLIAM HOPE DAVIS, M.D., who occupies a prominent position among the leading members of the medical profession in this State, is one of the foremost representatives of the Eclectic school of practice. He is a native of Genesee County, N.Y., born September 1, 1837, and comes of fine stock on both sides of the house. He is a son of David and Harriet (Wilder) Davis, natives respectively of Cattaraugus County, N.Y., and Worcester, Mass., his father born in 1794 and his mother in 1798. His father's ancestors were from Ireland, and for generations were noted as Protestants and free thinkers. His mother was from the well-known Wilder family of Massachusetts.

David Davis was a mechanic but followed farming. When our subject was five years of age his parents removed to Michigan and there his father died at a ripe age in 1871. The mother is still living in Michigan. She has attained the venerable age of ninety-two years, yet she retains in a remarkable degree her physical and mental vigor. She is in good health and able to take care of herself. Two years ago she visited her son in Springfield, making the entire journey alone. She has a sister living in California who is three years her senior. She comes of a wonderfully long lived race and her mother, Harriet Wilder, died in Worcester, Mass., at the age of one hundred and five years.

After he was five years of age, the boyhood of our subject was spent in Lapeer County, Mich., where he remained until he was seventeen years old. His father being a carpenter, put him to the same employment as soon as he could handle tools. At the age mentioned he returned to new York, and remained there two years attending school. >From there he went to Memphis, Tenn., where at the age of nineteen years he united with the Deciple or Christian Church of which he has since been a devoted and consistent member. In that city he became a student of Prof. Gabbett, who had held a prominent position in the Worcester Eclectic Medical College of Massachusetts, and remained under his instruction some time. In the winter of 1854-55 he attended a course of lectures in the Memphis College of Medicine, and subsequently pursued his studies in Barbees Academy until the spring of 1857. He then established himself in practice in Paris, Tex. During the summer of 1858 he went out to California by the way of Mexico, traveling the entire distance on horseback. In August, 1859 he left Texas and rode a pony to Memphis, making the entire distance, four hundred and seventy-five miles, in eight days, though much of the way led through a wilderness. At Memphis he took the cars for Hillsboro, Ohio, where on the 10th of September he was united in marriage to Miss Rachel Ann Davis, who though of the same name was not a relative. She was a descendant of the William Penn family of Pennsylvania. In the spring of 1860 Dr. Davis bought a book store in Leesburg, Ohio, which he sold a few months later and returned to Memphis, Tenn. Political troubles made a protracted stay in that city inexpedient, as the rumblings of the threatened war were heard on every side, so he wisely betook himself to Goodrich, Mich. He opened an office in that city for the practice of his profession and also bought and managed a drug store. He accumulated money by his enterprises but injured his health by too close application to business. While there he was drafted into the army, but bought his way out, deeming it better so to do with his surroundings. He abandoned his practice there and disposed of his drug store, and then went to Cincinnati, where he attended the Eclectic Institute from which he was graduated with honor. His health was still in a precarious condition and he traveled that he might improve it, for several months in the Eastern States. Subsequently he recommenced practice in Flora, Ill., but early in 1867 left that place and located permanently in Springfield. Here he has ever since led an active and busy life, as the demands of a large practice require his constant attention. He has met with more than ordinary success, and his fame as a physician extends far beyond the bounds of city and county, and has tended to heighten the reputation of the school of medicine that he so ably represents.

Dr. Davis is prominent in medical circles and has done much to promote the advancement of his profession. It was mainly through his instrumentality that the Illinois Eclectic Medical Society was organized, as he procured its charger in 1869. He was Secretary of the society five years and was unanimously elected editor of its journal, which position he has filled with credit. He was prominent in the councils of the National Medical Association which met in the city of Washington in 1876, and he was elected Secretary of the Association. He has contributed many valuable articles to periodical medical literature, and he was one of the first movers for the laws regulating the practice of medicine. He has been a member of the Springfield City Board of Health for a number of years and is one of the most useful members of that important sanitary organization. He is a man of large heart and generous impulses, is charitable in the extreme, and no good work for the advancement of the city fails for want of his hearty co-operation with its movers.