C. P. Davis
C. P. Davis was born in Dayton, Ohio, in 1833. His father was a prominent Democrat in that district, of which this county was then a part. He was an elector on the Democratic Presidential ticket of 1840. Our subject's first instruction in the printing business was received in the Empire office in Dayton, Ohio, which he entered May 1, 1846. Commencing at the bottom of the ladder, as devil, he continued through 1849 and 1850, and completed his course in James's book establishment in Cincinnati. He next printed the Union County Tribune for the proprietor, Hon. C. S. Hamilton, then a member of the Ohio Constitutional Convention. Leaving Marysville, we next find him at his old home at Dayton, engaged with two other printers in editing and publishing the Daily City Item, a paper which earned such popularity that it acquired the largest circulation of the city papers, which gave it the P. O. advertising. Selling out in 1852, he shortly afterward went to St. Marys, this county, and engaged in the grocery and confectionery business, but withdrew in 1854, and crossed the plains to California, spending about five months on the way. Here he tried his luck in the mines, but found it less profitable than printing. After a year or so, he, with a junior partner, purchased the Mariposa Democrat. In 1858 he sold out to his partner and returned to Ohio by the way of the Isthmus. In the winter of 1858 he became manager of the Dayton Daily Empire, with which he was connected until Nov. 1860. In 1859 he married a daughter of Anthony Dieker, of Wapakoneta, Ohio. After severing his connection with the Empire, he came to Wapakoneta, with the expectation of purchasing the Democrat, but failing in this, he engaged in the hardware business, and built up a large and growing trade. In 1869, he was elected clerk of the courts, on the Democratic ticket, and served nine years and three months, having received the third-term nomination without opposition. In 1875, he purchased a half interest in the Democrat, and in 1876, he purchased the interest of his partner, the late Robert McMurray.
From History of Auglaize County, Ohio, with the Indian History of Wapakoneta, and the First Settlement of the County Robert Sutton, Publishers, Wapakoneta, 1880