Micajah C. Davis was born May 24, 1779 in Virginia, son of Samuel Davis and Anna Lipscomb (Our Kin: Genealogies of some Families Who Made History in Bedford Co., Virginia.  He and Mary C. “Polly” Johnson were married on February 4, 1811 in Maury Co., Tennessee, the marriage being performed by Robert Sellers, J.P. (Tennessee Marriage Records) To this union were born 9 children: Franklin Washington, John W., Porter Moore (1817 – 1889), William Donaldson, Isabella Elizabeth, Mary Caroline, Louisa N., Jane Amanda Rebecca and M.Y.  It is believed that after the death of his son Franklin, Micajah C. and Polly took their grandson, Micajah, to raise as their own. (History of Grayson County, vol. I, c1979)

Micajah C. Davis was in Maury County, Tennessee when it was organized in 1807.  He moved to Nashville before 1830 and from there to Texas.

In 1836 Abel Warren established a trading post in what would be Fannin county a year later, but he removed shortly to Walnut Creek, Indian Territory.  Daniel Montague in November 1837 came to Warren's abandoned trading place, bringing with him a number of slaves as well as his wife and six children.  In 1838 Warren was selected as the county seat of newly organized Fannin County.

The next family to be attached to the Warren settlement was that of Daniel Dugan, coming from Missouri in 1836.  Duran's first location was on Bois d'Arc creek in Fannin County, in 1837 near the mouth of Old Choctaw creek near Old Warren, later known as Kitchen's Fort.  Others came along and located on Bois d'Arc, among whom were the families of Josiah Washburn and Micajah Davis.  There was a scarcity of provisions; their principal food consisted of buffalo meat and game, varied by turnips and water.

Josiah Washburn was the first white man killed by the Indians in northern Texas with his murder being the beginning of a three year long state of hostilities between the settlers and the native Indians.

According to his land grant, Micajah and his family arrived on April 21, 1837 in the area soon to become Fannin County, Texas, created from Red River County on December 14, 1837.  A blacksmith by trade, he set up a shop at the Bois d'Arc camp site near what would be later Orangeville, Fannin County.  (J.W. Wilbarger.  Indian Depredations in Texas, c1890, pg.382)  “Micajah and William Donaldson Davis and a man named Ridley, who left for fear of the Indians, are also known to have camped with Dugan, although it is unknown whether they joined him on the Bois d’ Arc or near Warren.” (Graham Landrum. An Illustrated History of Grayson County, Texas. C1960, pg.10) and later set up the first blacksmith shop in Grayson County.  Soon after 1837 Micajah Davis left Bois d’Arc and settled near Iron Ore Creek and had as a nearby neighbor, William C. Caruthers.  (Mattie Davis Lucas & Mita Holsapple Hall.  A History of Grayson County, c1936. Pg.37)

In January 1838 the Dugan family left Bois d'Arc and settled near Choctaw Creek in Grayson County, not far from the settlement of Warren.  Soon afterwards, Michajah Davis moved his family, settling near Iron Ore Creek.  Soon after the Davis family left, Josiah Washburn was attacked and killed.

Davis' land grant dated June 1839 was for 1280 acres near Iron Ore Creek where he established him two-story cabin. “Davis and his two sons erected the place and received a land grant from the Texas government, a mile square.  (“Every Day Denison, The Denison Press, Thursday, September 24, 1936, pg.1) The cabin was moved to Frontier Village, the historical part for Grayson Co. and in 1976 received a Texas State Historical Marker.

In 1836 there was flourishing Indian village known as Shawneetown (in the vicinity of Denison) and located near Warren. The Choctaws and Chickasaws arrived in the Grayson County area about the same time as the white settlers, who had agreed to a treaty with the Federal Government giving then lands north of Red River; they had been promised security from white encroachment.  The white settlers took the liberties of shooting the wild game in the area to which they retaliated by driving off animals from the settlers’ farmstead.  In May 1837 Daniel Montague organized a company of less than 20 men which attacked a party of Indians near Warren, for which no provocation is known, in which several Indians were killed.  From this time on the settlers were troubled with constant theft.  Added to the situation was several killings in the absence of the Montague party.  Frontier hysteria gained ground but all attempts to quell the Indian raids simply resulted in renews atrocities.  To alleviate the panic among the newly arrived white settlers, three forts were built across northern Fannin County, as well as a stockade at Warren.  It was here in the summer and autumn of 1838 that the neighbors of the Choctaw Bayou and Iron Ore settlements took refuge as the occasion prompted.  The Warren stockade was built large enough to accommodate a great many settlers and to be used in case of attack.  

Some preferred to live in their houses of logs or tents in the vicinity of the fort, depending on the fort in times of extreme danger while others lived inside the stockade until they felt it safe to return to their homes; they brought with them their cows and went about their daily routine of labor.  Those men living near enough to go and return the same day worked their farms with someone standing guard always while others worked.  The Shannon brothers, Michajah Davis and the Carothers brothers from Iron Ore Creek, the Dugan family from Choctaw Creek, and families below Warren were among the first to avail themselves of the protection of Ft. Warren.  (J.W. Wilbarger.  Indian Depredations in Texas, c1890, pg. 393)

During an Indian scare in 1839 the neighbors of Choctaw Bayou and Iron Ore were “forted” together that the first school was held for the children of the settlers.  An old stable was cleaned out, split logs were provided for the scholars to sit on, and a chair was requisitioned for the teacher, a Mr. John Trimble.  The school books were just what were available, i.e.: The New Testament; The Life of John Nelson, a Methodist divine; Pilgrim’s Progress; Fox’s Book of Martyrs; Webster’s blue backed Speller; Lindley Murray’s Grammar; and an arithmetic book.  The children who attended were William and Lee Lankford, Artelia Baker and her sister, Mary, and Louisa Davis, Catharine and Henry Dugan, a daughter of John F. Moody, and Martin D. Hart. (Graham Landrum. “Choctaw, Iron Ore, and Warren.” An Illustrated History of Grayson County, Texas. C1960, pg.11)

Indian uprisings of the late 1830s and early 1840s when the Indian tribes came out of what is now Oklahoma and other parts of Texas, “…a rider would carry the news to every home and village so that every citizen and homesteader might be prepared for the attack or leave the country.  The Davis’ mother, father and two sons packed up their belongings and lit out, leaving their pigs, cows and the animals’ offspring on the land.  They fled toward what is now Ambrose, then Ft. Warren, but were stopped at Iron Ore creek by heavy floods.  Camping there, they suddenly heard noises coming toward them, and fearing it was Indians, they prepared to fight.  Instead, it was their stock following them.”

“Old man Davis, impressed by the incident, turned to his sons and wife and said: ‘Boys, those Injuns have driven us away from our rightful home.  If you are with me, let’s go back, barricade the place and give those Injuns H---.’  During the interim the Indians had swerved away from that section and caused no trouble” (“Every Day Denison, The Denison Press, Thursday, September 24, 1936, pg.1)
The creation of Grayson County out of Fannin County in 1846 required the selection of a county seat within four miles of the geographic center of the new county.  In the original enactment establishing Grayson County, James G. Thompson, James B. Shannon, George C. Dugan, Richard McIntyre and Micajah Davis were appointed commissioners to determine the location of the county seat.  The spot determined by the group of commissioners was located on a hill west of present-day Sherman. On December 1, 1846 Uriah Burns auctioned off lots in the new city; purchasers were Robert Atchison, Joseph B. Earheart, J.G. Thompson, George Shields, James H. Mars, Joshua West, J. Martin, M.C. Davis, James Miller, James B. Shannon, J. Gaskins, M. Hardaway, J.M. Bonds, Joshua Trieste, John Hendricks and J. Cronister with terms requiring payment made within one year.  On July 4, 1847 the citizens gathered to marker the opening of a new phase of life with the building of the court house; a brush arbor was set up, a whiskey barrel was opened and a colored fiddler played for the dance. T.J. Shannon as first Representative of the new county was the principal agitator for a change of location of the county seat; he secured the bill for the removal to the town and a second committee was formed for the location of the second “Sherman”, of which Micajah Davis was not a member.  (Graham Landrum. “Sherman.” An Illustrated History of Grayson County, Texas. C1960, pg.18-19)

They (Davis family) all lived and died on that place, and it was later sold to Billy Ansley’s [William Thomas Ansley (1861-1952] father, i.e. Josephus Rayburn Ansley.” (“Every Day Denison, The Denison Press, Thursday, September 24, 1936, pg.1) Many of the area’s settlers, Shannon brothers, Carothers brothers, Dugan family from Choctaw, also sought refuge at Ft. Warren. The Indians were gathering in a body on the frontier; with attack imminent, some settlers moved into Ft. Warren while those that lived near enough to the fort to go and return the same day, continued to work their farms, some one standing guard always while other plowed.  (Wilbarger, J.W.  Indian Depredations in Texas, 2^nd ed.  Hutchings Printing House, Austin, Texas, c1890, pg.393)
When the Grayson County area of Texas contained 300 settlers, petition was made to become a separate county.  M.C. Davis was one of the commissioners appointed by the 1^st Legislature of Texas to measure the county area and locate the county seat, Sherman.  This task took 3 months to complete; their measuring instrument was a 10-foot chain from Davis’ blacksmith shop. On December 1, 1846 lots were auctioned off at the location of the new county seat with one of the buyers being Micajah Davis. ( Graham Landrum. “Sherman.” An Illustrated History of Grayson County, Texas. C1960)

Family stories that Davis and Sam Houston knew each other in eastern Tennessee and that he frequently stopped at the Davis cabin on his journey to and from the United States.

The story is that Rev. Sumner Bacon was riding down an old wagon road near Moss Springs. Micajah Davis invited him to his cabin. During his time there, Rev. Bacon was asked to preach for Mr. Davis's family and neighbors, amounting to about twenty people.
From this chance meeting grew the beginning of Pilot Knobs Cumberland Presbyterian Church.  
Micajah was active in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Grayson county and probably hosted the founding meeting for the Pilot Knob congregation in 1842 in his log cabin made of oak, becoming one of the first elders of the church.  As one of the trustees for the church, he assisted in the purchase of land in 1848 from Alonzo Larkin for a church, school house and campground.  In 1848 Micajah Davis, Robert Bean, and William Johnson, trustees of Pilot Knobs Cumberland Presbyterian Church, bought property from Alonzo Larkin “for the benefit and use of said church as well as for a school house and camp ground.”  (Mattie Davis Lucas & Mita Holsapple Hall.  A History of Grayson County, Texas, c1936.  Pg.74) 

Meetings continued to be held in the Davis cabin or a neighbor's home. When warmer weather arrived, the congregation chose a spot located about one mile southeast of the Davis cabin on the branch of Iron Ore Creek for a meeting place. A campground was carved out on the south side of the creek. A cemetery was established on the north side of the same creek.  The church dissolved by 1865 due to shifts in the population after the Civil War.

It is unknown why the church, cemetery, campground and community was named Pilot Knob.  It was customary for men, at that time, to call small hills "knobs".  Pilot Knob Road was a huge circle road that is now Lillis Lane.  The old Pilot Knob Road was comprised of what is today parts of Loy Lake Road, Polaris Drive, Stafford Drive, Harvey Lane and Lillis Lane.  (Micajah C. Davis (1776-1860), Pilot Knob Community.  Frontier Village.)

Great-Great-Granddaughter, Mrs. Joseph J. Milkovich noted in her family biography of 1979 included in Vol. I of the History of Grayson County the examination of Hodge park disclosed the possible foundations of the church and school as well as several early graves including some of the Davis family.

Micajah Davis died in Grayson County between 1860 and 1866.  His wife, Mary A, aka “Polly” or “Sally”, died in January 1860 in Grayson County, Texas.  Both are buried in Clarke Cemetery.

The Davis home was sold by relatives of Micajah Davis to Josephus R. Ansley (1826-1873) and his wife, Gilley (1826 – 1915) in 1870 (“Every Day Denison.” The Denison Press, Thursday, September 24, 1936, pg. 1); the cabin was later occupied by their son, Will (1861-1952).  After Will Ansley’s death, Mr. and Mrs. John Summers purchased the 100+ year old structure in 1953 and donated it to the Old Settlers Village in 1972, where it continues to stand as a landmark home of Grayson County and witness to the family that settled in the area so many years earlier.