MELANCTHON M. DAVIS. Probably one of the best known pharmacists in the state of Oregon for many years, and one who materially assisted in framing and having enacted the initial medical and pharmaceutical laws of the state, was Hon. M. M. Davis, who was born in Lane county, near Eugene, Oregon, on September 30, 1851. His parents, Benjamin and Catharine S. Davis crossed the plains and settled about two and one-half miles northwest of the present site of Eugene, in 1847, theirs being the second cabin built in that vicinity. 
M. M. Davis was reared on the donation claim of his parents, and acquired his education in the semi-public schools of those early days, and for a time was a pupil in the old Columbia College until it was discontinued, and then attended an academy which was maintained for a time at Eugene under the auspices of the Episcopal church, which was later removed to Oswego, and combined with the Bishop Scott academy. He was one of the early graduates of the first business college conducted in Portland, and commenced his business career in 1868 as a clerk with Avery A. Smith, who was at that time conducting a large general merchandise store in Eugene, later clerking in drug stores in Eugene, and studying pharmacy under Dr. H. Ellsworth, a pioneer physician and pharmacist of that town. He also read medicine under Drs. George W. Odell and Abram Sharples.
In 1874 Mr. Davis was married to Miss Mary Bushnell, a daughter of George E. Bushnell, who settled in Lane county in 1866. In 1881 with his wife and infant daughter he removed to Newport, then in Benton county, and started a drug store which he conducted until 1884. When the Oregon Pacific Railroad was constructed from Corvallis to Yaquina, he removed to Yaquina, where he conducted a store and practiced medicine for some years. In the great panic of 1893 a large milling corporation on the Santiam river, in which he had made investments, failed and he was appointed receiver to wind up its affairs. In order to do this he removed with his family to Corvallis, where they continued to reside until all of his four children had graduated from the Oregon Agricultural College. He retained his interests at Yaquina bay, however, and spent the summers there. In 1907 he built a home in Eugene and returned there for permanent residence.
Although a democrat, he was elected to the legislature in 1886 in Benton county, which was then largely republican, and in the ensuing session he supported the first bill to be introduced to regulate the practice of medicine. This bill was bitterly fought being finally defeated by one vote. At that time Hon. John Wilson of Portland had introduced a bill to regulate the prescribing for, and sale of, opium, morphine, chioral hydrate and other narcotics, which was much more drastic than the medical bill, and would confine the prescribing for such medicines to regular graduate physicians only. This bill had been pigeon-holed in committee, and when the medical bill was defeated, Mr. Davis went to Mr. Wilson and suggested that if he would allow him to amend the bill to permit the licensing of pharmacists to sell those drugs, they would get it recommenclel and have it passed. This was done; and the bill passed unanimously, none of the opponents of the medical bill suspecting its real purpose. So was enacted the first legislation in Oregon attempting to regulate the practice of medicine and pharmacy, this law remaining upon the statute books until long after the passage of regular laws affecting these sub- jects rendering it unnecessary.
On .June 10, 1890, he assisted in organizing the Oregon State Pharmaceutical As- sociation, aria was elected its first presi- dent, with H. D. Dietrich as secretary, and Louis G. Clarke as treasurer. Through the efforts of the association a pharmacy law was passed at the ensuing session of the legislature, in 1891, and the Oregon State Board of Pharmacy was created, and Governor Pennoyer offered Mr. Davis an ap- pointment as a member of the board, which he waived in favor of L. G. Clarke who was appointed, and was elected the first president of the board. The next year upon the expiration of Mr. Clarke’s term, the Governor without previous consultation or notice sent Mr. Davis a commission as member of the board for the full term of five years, which he accepted, arid at the ensuing meeting was elected president which office he held for five years, being reelected each succeeding year at all times giving his best efforts for the good of the cause.
His experience as a member of the board convinced him of the necessity for more adequate provision for a school of pharmacy in the state, and together with Professor Shaw (Professor of chemistry in the Oregon Agricultural College) he began negotiations, which the board afterward concluded with the regents, to establish in the Oregon Agricultural College the course of pharmacy, which was a success from the start, and which is of inestimable value to the state.
Having great faith in the progress and development of the material resources of the state, after the business matters which had called him to Corvallis had all been satisfactorily settled, he engaged in developing and settling up the uninhabited portions of western Benton and of Lincoln counties. With some of his friends and associates he organized the Coast Land Livestock company, which purchased and placed upon the market forty thousand acres of the Corvallis and Yaquina bay military wagon road lands, and sold in tracts to settlers, adding materially to the population and prosperity of the sections of the two counties.
While engaged with those lands, he purchased on his private account extensive tracts of tidelands on Yaquina bay, and in 1909 built the first dredge to be used on that bay for diking arid reclaiming tidelands. He reclaimed his own lands and those of his neighbors, and his land has become one of the finest dairy farms in the state.

From The Centennial History of Oregon, pg. 106-107