Alfred Gordon Davis was born in February 1861 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Davis immigrated to the United States with his parents in 1864. He was a Presbyterian minister for forty years, serving congregations in Raleigh, Lumberton, New Bern, and Rocky Mount. Davis also had a respected career as an educator, having schools both in Raleigh and Due West, S.C., before settling in Washington, N.C. where he was associated with the schools for eighteen years. He died at this latter place on September 17, 1929. His son, Alfred Jr., preceded him in death having lost his life to disease while serving overseas in the United States military in World War I.