This cabinet card shows Willard Davis, who served as Kansas' 10th Attorney General from January 8, 1877 to January 10, 1881. He was born January 26, 1837 in Madison County, Kentucky. He attended Missouri University, then studied law at Lexington, Kentucky, and was admitted to practice there. When the war began, he was commissioned into the Union army as a Lieutenant in the Thirty-First Kentucky Volunteer Infantry, but his military career was brief due to failing health. On March 14, 1863, Davis was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln as the Internal Revenue Collector for Kentucky. He held the position until September 1, 1866 when he was dismissed for failure to accept President Andrew Johnson's policies. Davis resumed his law career and advocated for civil rights for freed slaves. In the fall of 1870, Davis moved to Neosho Falls, Kansas and became the attorney for the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway Company. The following year he settled in Parsons, Kansas and was elected the town's first mayor. To focus on his political career, he resigned from the railroad in 1873. In 1874, he was elected county attorney for Labette County, Kansas. He held this office until he was elected in 1876 to serve as Attorney General for the State of Kansas. After two terms he returned to his private law practice. On December 6, 1885 at the age of forty-eight, he passed away after a lengthy illness at his home at Eleventh and Van Buren Street in Topeka, Kansas.

Creator: Mullen
Date: Between 1877 and 1881