Adam Davison, Sedro-Woolley
Obit: Sedro-Woolley Courier-Times
July 22, 1943
Sedro-Woolley lost one of its earliest pioneers and most picturesque characters, when Adam W. Davison passed away at his home here on July 18 (1943) at the age of 88 years. He was active up to the last and spent hours working in his big gardens. Funeral services were held on Tuesday afternoon from the Lemley chapel with members of the local Masonic lodge conducting the services.
Ad Davison was born in Ridgway, Pennsylvania, on Aug. 17, 1855, and had lived in Sedro-Woolley and the upper Skagit Valley for 54 years. He is survived by seven children, 14 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. His surviving children are R.L. Davison of Seattle, Lexie M. Sharpe and Olive C. Fahey of Sedro-Woolley; Hazel Topping of Glendale, Calif.; Mary Nelson of Montborne; Adam Davison Jr. of Sedro-Woolley and Bessie Davison of Tacoma.
Ad Davison came to Sedro-Woolley with his bride in 1890 and established himself in the lumber business, operating a sawmill at Sauk for years. He was the first depositor in the Bingham bank [in Sedro on July 30, 1890] and throughout the years, put away a nice sum, with which later, he went into the automobile business. after selling his garage, he carried the mail on a star route between here and Mount Vernon district for many years. He was remarkable for his energy and his ability to work long hours. His six acre farm on Township Street was a show place in this community. He had fine crops of peas.
Until a few years ago, he got up at 1:15 every morning, took his mail to Mount Vernon, waited until 4:15 a.m. for a return load to Sedro-Woolley and during the day carried mail from the local post office to the station, with hours of work in his garden, and fishing as a sideline. He leaves many friends and relatives and died as he would have wished, at work, without any long illness.
Journal Ed. note: The obituary leaves out many details of Davison's long, hard-working life. He came to Woolley from the San Juan islands where he quarried limestone; in fact, his oldest child was named Roche, after the harbor. There on Dec. 24, 1882 he married Betsy Firth, whose Scottish father Robert Firth, Scot, who sailed to Victoria in 1851 as an employee of the Hudson's Bay Co. Once here, Davison cut ties for the Fairhaven & Southern railroads and then sold his mill to Shrewsbury & McLain. He and his partner, W.W. Caskey, became partners with George Green, Emerson Hammer and F.A. Hegg in the Union Mercantile store and Davison also served as treasurer for John Anderson's Sedro-Woolley Iron Works.
He developed his stagecoach mail business because his auto business went bankrupt in 1915. After several years of long ours on the route, he sold out the business to Stone & Webster Co. and liquidated all his debts. Betsy died on Feb. 14, 1937. Jean Lisherness of Sedro-Woolley is a granddaughter of the Davisons.