GEORGE R. DAVIDSON. As a business man, Mr. Davidson is noted as being strictly honest and upright in all his dealings. As a miller he has been particularly successful, and is now the proprietor and sole owner of the Almont roller mills in Lapeer County. These mills were started in 1889, at the solicitation and with the assistance of the people of the town, they furnishing the site and building and $800 in cash. Mr. Davidson has a property worth 112,000 in one of the best wheat counties in this State, and his mills, a view of which, as well as a portrait of their owner, appears on another page of this volume, have a capacity for turning out from seventy-live to one hundred barrels per day.

A native of England, Mr. Davidson was born September 8, 1857, in Carlisle, Cumberland County, and is the son of William J. and Jessie (Morrow) Davidson, natives respectively of England and Scotland. When a mere lad, our subject came to America with a sister and brother. He began to learn the miller's trade when eighteen years of age while a resident of Canada, serving a part of his time there although he had begun learning his trade while yet in England. It was also in the mother country that he received his education mainly, although he attended common school in Canada and was for a time a pupil in a night school in the United States.

On coming to Port Huron Mr. Davidson began the study of marine engineering and carried that on during the summers while he devoted himself to the milling business in the winter. He followed that for some years and then returned to England where he introduced the roller mill as operated in America, He staid there about one year, then returned to America and was for a time in Cleveland, Ohio, and afterward in Bloomington, Ill., in the latter place he remained a year having charge of a mill.

Afterward our subject made another trip to England, having gone on a visit that lasted eight months. On returning he was engaged in engineering on the lakes for one summer and then purchased the mill at Lockport, which he operated one year. This place was sold to a brother, and our subject went to Brockaway where he ran a mill for W. H. Balentine, being thus engaged for four years. While at Lakeport he was married. May 4, 1885, to Miss Elizabeth E. Beck, of that city, although formerly a resident of Detroit. Mrs. Davidson is a daughter of Henry and Margaret (Durnin) Beck, and is an accomplished and refined lady. She is a graduate of the Detroit High School and for four years previous to her marriage was engaged as a teacher. Two children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Davidson: William Raymond, who was born in Brockway, August 31, 1886, and Milton D., who was born in the same place October 1, 1887.

In his political affiliations Mr. Davidson is a Democrat, but a man to whom order and equity are paramount to party ties. He has been a member of the Village Board, and is at the present time Chief of the fire department. Socially he is a member of the Masonic fraternity. He now holds papers as Chief Engineer of lake, bay and sound steamers. A wide-awake, progressive, man he takes a lively interest in all that pertains to the interests of Almont and Lapeer County.

[GLT, p. 365]