Dr. Lincoln Davis (1872-1952)
After graduating from Harvard and then from Harvard Medical School in 1898, Dr. Davis was immediately appointed as an instructor in anatomy at the medical school.
From 1901 to 1904, he served in Battery A of the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, a forerunner of the National Guard regiments. In 1917, he was ordered into service in World War I with the Massachusetts General Hospital’s surgical team in France and Italy. He served on the front in field and evacuation hospitals and rose in rank from Major to Lieutenant Colonel. After the Armistice, Dr. Davis returned to France as a commanding officer of Base Hospital 6 until his discharge from active duty in 1919.
Dr. Lincoln Davis became chief surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston; he helped run MGH’s Tumor Clinic and was appointed a Trustee of the hospital in 1932.
In World War II during the war emergency years, Dr. Davis came out of retirement to do volunteer duty in the outpatient department at MGH. Also, during his retirement, he was president of the Boston Medical Library.
Dr. Davis often traveled to his simple, one-room cabin in Sharon built in 1929 to relax and to enjoy the quiet. His descendants still own the cabin. In 1945, the nonprofit New England Forestry Foundation accepted its first donated forest, the Lincoln Davis Memorial Forest in Sharon, and made it available to the public.