| Nelson Fifthian Davis was born on August 10, 1872 at Seeley,
New Jersey. After attending the public schools, he prepared for entrance
to Bucknell at the South Jersey Institute at Bridgetown, New Jersey. He
entered Bucknell in 1891 and received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1895
and a Master of Science degree in 1896. He was a member of the Sigma Chi
fraternity. He began his teaching career at Bucknell during his sophomore
year when he was appointed an assistant in chemistry. In 1896, he was appointed
Instructor in Organic Science and he was promoted to Assistant Professor
of Organic Science in 1899. In 1903, the same year that he was awarded the
degree of Doctor Science by Bucknell, Davis became Professor of Biology.
In 1910, he succeeded Professor George G. Groff as Head of the Department
of Biology. He remained in this position for the next twenty-seven years.
He died on November 11, 1939 at the age of sixty-seven, having been a member
of the faculty for forty-three years.
During the summer of 1896, Davis attended the Summer School of the Brooklyn
Institute of Arts and Sciences at Cold Springs Harbor, Long Island. He
was an instructor in the Marine Biological Laboratory at Cold Spring Harbor
during the summers of 1898 through 1903. He also studied at the University
of Chicago, the Johns Hopkins University, and the Jefferson Medical College.
He conducted research on the migration of birds and the life history of
the tent caterpillar. He built up an extensive zoological collection,
which was lost in the fire that destroyed the central section of Old Main
in 1932. He was also the head of the Governor’s Commission that
studied the chestnut tree blight in Pennsylvania.
This photograph is taken from the 1920 L'Agenda
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