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James Wood Davidson

American journalist

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 13, 2026
Entity authorityQ15433285 ↗
Source-derived summary

James Wood Davidson (March 9, 1829 – June 27, 1905) was a United States author.

Biography

James Wood Davidson was born in Newberry District, South Carolina on March 9, 1829. He graduated from South Carolina College, Columbia, in 1852, studied languages under private tutors, from 1854 to 1859 was professor of Greek in Mount Zion College, Winnsboro, South Carolina, and in 1859 became principal of Carolina High School, Columbia. From 1862 to 1863, he was adjutant of infantry in Jackson's corps of Lee's army. He left Columbia in 1871, and lived two years in Washington, D.C., and eleven years in New York City, where he was literary editor of the Evening Post in 1873, and American correspondent of the London Standard from 1873 to 1878. In 1884, he moved to Figulus in Dade County, Florida, where he continued his literary work, and engaged in fruit culture. In 1885, he was a member of the Florida constitutional convention.

After 1887, he was employed in the Treasury Department at Washington, as a clerk.

James Wood Davidson died in Chattahoochee on June 23, 1905.

Works

Living Writers of the South (New York, 1869)

School History of South Carolina (Columbia, 1869; new ed., 1886)

The Correspondent (New York, 1886)

He edited:

William M. Martin, Lyrics and Sketches (1865)

The Educational Year-Book (1872)

Notes

References

Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “James Wood Davidson” as american journalist. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around James, Wood and Davidson.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1829, 1905, 1852, 1854—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1829-03-09. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with James, Wood and Davidson providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “James Wood Davidson”, the useful work is to connect “american journalist” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15433285. VIAF identifies the subject as 90584402. The Library of Congress control number is no2009098711. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1829, 1905, 1852 and 1854.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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  2. Expand the search: follow James Wood Davidson primary sources, James Wood Davidson archive and James research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “James Wood Davidson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.