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or three separate terms totaling 28 years, George H. Davis, Jr. was commonwealth’s attorney for Rappahannock. His first term was interrupted by war service; his second came about on the death of Botts Strother in 1946, and his third extended from 1960 to 1979, 19 years that saw the county develop zoning and subdivision ordinances, integrate peacefully and weather changes greater than any in its first century and a quarter. He died after two years of retirement in which he tried to separate himself from his long career as Rappahannock’s prosecutor, fishing and visiting after almost three decades of being on call night and day to nudge the wheels of justice.
“George came here in 1937,” his wife Dorothy recalled. “But he was always considered an outsider. One time I remember especially is when someone said to him, “George you’re nothing but an agitator.” ‘Why, thanks,’ he said, noting that the agitator is the most useful part of the w ashing machine and there was certainly an analogy there for the agitator in society.”
Davis is remembered for speaking his mind, for anticipating problems to come and for wholeheartedly pursuing directions he thought were necessary for the county. More than once, his quick thinking and responses served him well.
Once, in a restroom of a gas station on Chester Gap, Davis was confronted by a man he’d prosecuted and sent to prison. “I will kill you,” said the man, indicating he was armed. Davis, unarmed except for the tools of a lawyer, simply talked him out of it.
Threats wrere nothing new to the veteran prosecutor. Once, he was actually shot at by the husband of a client he represented in a divorce case. Although the man was eventually brought to justice, several uncomfortable months passed while the man was released on bond and moved in across the street from the Davis family.
Another man made it a practice to threaten Davis from time to time, until the day when he telephoned to say he was Jesus Christ and that he would befriend Davis w’hen he came. I left the house that day,” Dorothy Davis remembers. “But not before I thanked the caller and politely said goodbye just as though he were making sense.”
Other threats as well as vocal opposition came when Davis refused to circumvent the law and avoid integration, Mrs. Davis said. When asked by the supervisors to find a loophole in the Supreme Court decision, Davis told them that he would uphold the law of the land including that law which would eventually benefit the white as well as the black children of the county.
“In Front Royal they just got around it,” Mrs. Davis said. “There was just one lonely voice, The Warren Sentinel, asking for sanity and fairness in the integration of the schools. This issue almost ruined that newspaper. No one would advertise in it and subscriptions went down. It was a bitter, troubling time for everyone.
“So here in Rappahannock, schools remained open, taking children bused in from Warren where the schools had closed in massive resistance. George said he would resign rather than be a party to resisting integration.”
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