Harrison Purcell Davis (22 July 1883–3 March 1968), mayor of Manassas, was born in Prince William County and was the son of Robert Hutchison Davis and Annie Laurie Harrison Davis. He studied at local academies and took a business course at the Spencerian Business College, in Washington, D.C. Davis worked as a bookkeeper for his father's lumber business before moving about 1904 to Manassas, where he became a teller at Peoples National Bank. On 2 October 1913, in Washington, D.C., he married Mary Parilia Adams. They had two sons and one daughter.

Harry P. Davis, as he was generally known, joined the National Bank of Manassas as assistant cashier in 1914 and became cashier in 1918. He helped steer the bank through the Great Depression and during the 1930s was president of the regional Clearing House Association, a group he helped organize in 1931 as a forum for bankers to discuss local problems. He remained National's cashier until his retirement on 31 January 1956 and at the time of his death also was treasurer of the Central Mutual Telephone Company, Inc.

In July 1918 Davis became treasurer of the town of Manassas. In 1921 Manassas residents, upset at the increasing public debt, erratic water and electrical service, and lack of improvements to the town's infrastructure, nominated a slate of new candidates for the upcoming council and mayoral election. Local businessmen urged Davis to enter the mayor's race in opposition, and in May, too late to be listed on the ballot, he declared that he would serve if elected. On 14 June 1921 he won election with 126 write-in votes out of 229 votes cast.

At his first council meeting as mayor Davis spoke at length on the necessity for cooperation between the council and town residents. His wide-ranging recommendations included employing a town sergeant, reviving the fire department, and prohibiting unattended livestock from roaming the streets of Manassas, a small town with a 1920 population of 1,305. He also proposed establishing a budget system. In March 1922 the council unanimously approved a bond issue to cancel the town's floating debt in order to devote revenue to public utilities and other improvements. Davis often emphasized the importance of efficiency in town management and supported the city manager form of government, which Manassas adopted in May 1927. Afterward the council chose the mayor from its ranks, and, except for a year in 1927–1928 when Davis declined to serve, he remained the town's mayor for the next thirty-five years. As mayor he also acted as judge in municipal court cases until the appointment of a police justice in 1960.

At Davis's suggestion, in 1926 Manassas joined the League of Virginia Municipalities (later the Virginia Municipal League), an organization focused on improving city and town administration. He served two terms as first vice president in 1929–1930 and 1931–1932 and in October 1932 was elected to a one-year term as president. Davis urged municipalities to work together to develop a legislative program benefiting Virginia's localities. He believed that citizens had the right to, and bore the responsibility for, local self-government, and he advocated establishing a mayoral association in northern Virginia to fight the centralization of power at the state level.

Always looking for ways to strengthen his community, Davis called for creating a board of trade to work with the town council. In 1935 he was an organizing member of the Manassas–Prince William County Chamber of Commerce and served as its president for the 1946–1947 term. In the 1940s Davis supported extending the town limits, and in 1956 Manassas won a lawsuit to annex 900 acres of surrounding Prince William County, which contributed to increasing the town's population to 3,555 by 1960. In February 1963 Davis announced that he would not seek reelection to the city council when his term ended that year. At the time he was believed to have been the longest-serving mayor in Virginia.

Davis understood the importance of commercial aviation to local development and early in the 1930s led the council's effort in securing an airfield for Manassas, which he also helped to finance. The town purchased the leased field in 1945. Davis continued to urge construction of a larger airport, and on 20 September 1964 the Harry P. Davis Field was dedicated at the new Manassas Municipal Airport. Harrison Purcell Davis died of emphysema at a Washington hospital on 3 March 1968 and was buried in the city cemetery in Manassas.

Sources Consulted:
Biography in Richard Lee Morton, comp., Virginia Lives: The Old Dominion Who's Who (1964), 249–250 (with self-reported birth date); Manassas Journal, 3 Oct. 1913, 3, 17 June 1921, 28 Apr., 5, 19 May, 27 Oct. 1932 (portrait); Manassas Prince William News, 8 Sept. 1921; Manassas Journal Messenger, 2 Feb. 1956, 28 Feb. 1963, 17, 24 Sept. 1964; Washington Post and Times Herald, 3 Mar. 1963; Catherine T. Simmons, Manassas, Virginia, 1873–1973: One Hundred Years of a Virginia Town (1986); obituaries in Washington Post and Times Herald, 5 Mar. 1968, Manassas Journal Messenger, 7 Mar. 1968, and Virginia Municipal Review 45 (Mar. 1968): 1.

Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by Marianne E. Julienne.

How to cite this page:
Marianne E. Julienne, "Harrison Purcell Davis (1883–1968)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2021 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Davis_Harrison_Purcell, accessed [today's date]).

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